Cultivating a Deeper Relationship with My Daughter

As the Princess gets older - she's nine going on nineteen - I want to keep our relationship open and loving. You always hear people say, "Just wait until she's a teenager, then she won't even talk to you!" In an effort to avoid that dire prediction from coming true, I want to start cultivating a deeper relationship with her now.

So I borrowed this idea from Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooling Mom. It's a notebook in which she and I write back and forth to each other. I started by asking her to be my pen pal. I told her she could ask me anything and I'd give her an honest answer. We'd keep our communications just between us. Then I placed the notebook on her bed. When she wrote back to me, she put the notebook on my bed.

So far I've shared my favorite Bible verses and she's shared a few with me. She's drawn some pictures of the two of us, too. I know that it's often easier to write out thoughts and feelings instead of expressing them verbally, so I hope this keeps the lines of communication open between us, even when she hits the dreaded tween years.

Oh, if you want to know how I made this, it's very simple. I had a composition notebook that I covered with scrapbook paper. I used a glue stick to adhere the paper. Then I used stickers for the words Mom and Me. Easy peasy.