Kid / Parent Bedtime Journal...Have you made one yet?

My kids, as you guys already know are old enough to draw and paint with assistance, but not old enough to write legibly.  I am not wishing their lives away, I am glad to wait until this new stage hits.  In the meantime, I am planning to make some journals with them that we can all use together one day.

I was at a home school conference a few years back and one of the speakers was a woman who is on staff at a local church here- Life Church- where the You Version Bible app came from.

I have been to the church and it is great, but not my home church.  However, one of the ladies held a seminar at the home school convention where she said she uses journals with her kids to communicate.  She said that often when they get older, they may stop sharing as much as they used to due to feeling like parents might yell or judge them etc.  She started with her son and daughter if I am not mistaken, and it was a hit.
The goal is to have your kids write in it either a response to your question  or a question of you they might have and then simply leave it under their bed!  In the morning you get it from under their pillow or wherever they stored it and you read it and put in your comments and then put it back.  This way you are both listening and responding with out cutting each other off or talking over each other or worse- making them feel belittled etc.

If you already have a great relationship with your kids then it may be good to try it and see if those communication lines can stay open.  I am going to experiment with the journals by having the kids  draw their feelings with faces.  When they are older, I can  have them work on their writing like momma!

With this idea, know however,  there may be some causalities.

The woman who mentioned this style of  journal in class said she was startled to find out what her daughter wrote in response to her question.  The mother asked what she as a mother could work on.  She thought,

What possibly, could my 11 year old daughter really  have to say to me about this?

Well, unfortunately, the daughter said that she wished her mother would stop yelling at her.  Ahem, uh, I am unfortunately guilty of this at times and have already started to work on it when I realized it.  For that mom, it was not too late but a wake up call.   I am glad to have resources already in my hip pocket before the kids are verbal enough to tell me the same (hopefully).

It will be a fun experiment / craft activity anyway.  Expect a future post on it when the kids get a bit bigger!

So speaking of this style of journal, have you done anything similar?  With a boss or a spouse? Or with yourself?  I am interested to know and see pictures!