How To Inspire Your Kids To Write And Why.

Writing is a magical medium. It’s a vehicle for communication, connection and creativity. It’s an opportunity to learn and grow, have fun and sharpen your senses. Kids need to start writing early because writing helps to cultivate emotional growth, develop critical thinking skills and improve school performance.

Being able to express yourself is a skill and gift. By cultivating this capability in your child, you are giving him the priceless power to share his thoughts and ideas with the world in a meaningful way.
 
Keys to inspire their kids to write. Here’s a bit on each key to get them started.
1. Word Power. Kids love learning new words, and they typically pick them up very quickly. In fact, before kids even know how to read, they learn at least nine words a day, on average. Teach your kids new words regularly. These might be words you read in a magazine, newspaper or on the Internet. Also, share with them words that involve their interests.

2. Reading Life. There are many benefits to reading aloud to your child, including indirectly teaching them about grammar and syntax and how stories are told. These helps to support their future writing. Read books from all genres, even using picture books to create your own stories.
Also, pick books based on your child’s interests and passions. Keep reading books to your kids; this helps them develop a “writer’s ear". Look for heart-stopping moments of beautiful language, or the just right phrase, or simply an unbelievably perfect turn of the plot, or a glorious description of a character that makes you fall in love with him or her.

3. Time. Between school and extracurricular activities, you probably feel like there’s little time left to add another activity to an already overflowing pile. But making time for your child to write gives them the opportunity to express themselves and to practice.
Gives your child the gift of an outlet for all of the thoughts, ideas, questions and creations that fill his or her mind.Parents should create a writing center with different writing tools, and keep a notebook and tools in the car, too. This way your child can write whenever they want.


So what do you suggest your kids actually write? Use these four prompts to kickstart kids’ storytelling. You can ask your kids “to write, draw or talk in response.”

• What he remembers (use baby photos, artifacts, your own stories to get him going)
• What he observes (everything around him, something he noticed on his way to school or on a class trip)
• What he wonders about (this is a fun one; find out what your child is thinking by asking about his thoughts. These will change on a daily basis!)
• What he imagines (about the future, by creating a pretend universe, by inventing a news story)

Many of us have a negative reaction to writing. We associate it with painstaking research papers, anxiety producing exams and a whole lot of hard, gut-wrenching work. Now, don’t get me wrong. Sometimes writing is hard and emotional and exhausting. But it’s also a lot of fun.
Like many of us, children have come to equate writing with hard, laborious work. But the pleasure and excitement of writing something that matters to you personally is uplifting and often really energizing.

" Living a writing life is living with our eyes wide open. "