Scrapbooking with Young Kids

By Fion Lim

Kids grow up so fast and if you don't try to capture some of these wonderful memories through some means, they'll all slip through the fingers just in a snap. And scrapbooking is a fabulous way to preserving those memories, by combining the photos and journaling of your kids.

As parents, scrapbook pages of your adorable boy or girl probably fill up many pages. But these are stories told from your perspective. How about including your child's perspective into those pages as well?

Children have many stories to tell and share and through the shared scrapbooking experiences, he or she will have a mean of documenting those wonderful stories that impacted his or her life. Try scrapbooking not only about your kid, but together with your kid. As in combined forces and powers of mommy and kid. Your child's views will certainly add a heart-rending air of innocence and specialness to those pages. Not forgetting that scrapping together with your kid is an excellent hobby to bring the two of your even closer. And you'll become a tirelessly cheerleader and supporter, to encourage your child to grow his or her art and language skills. Scrapbooking also enhances the worth and sense of uniqueness in your kid. If your kid is still very young and hasn't mastered the art of doing a basic layout, you can always do the layout while your child dictates the journaling portion. Consider pointing out a few layouts options and let your kid do the selection. The ideas your child has of how the page should look might take you by surprise!

Journaling is important even if it's just a few keywords or short sentences. This can be a fun session with your child. The creative answers generated from the little brain of your boy or girl are what make these pages special.

By supporting your kid in expressing his or her own choices and thoughts, it's a great way to inspire farther creativity in your child to want to do more scrapbook pages.

You can choose a topic and then present it to your kid. "Bobby, would you like to do a page on your favorite toys?”. “Jeannie, would you like to do a page on your trip to Paige's birthday party at the McDonald's?"

If your child is excited about the topic, then use a series of about five to ten prompts to get your child's answers to them. Your boy's or girl's answers would then go into the journaling boxes of your page.

If possible, it's a good idea to get your child to write out the answers in his or her handwriting. Then another piece of your child's uniqueness would be retained on the pages.

The basic idea is for you to help your child scrapbooks the page, but the words would have to come from your kid. This would not only put your child's originality into the page, but would let others glimpse into your child's own perspective on the event or topic.

Many times, you'll realize that though the two of you experienced the same event, but would form vastly different impressions of the same experience. You may be touched by the loads of affection exchanged between your daughter and her best friend. But it's how she finally had the chance to order her first Oreo cookies ice-cream cone, which left the sweetest memory on her mind that day.

Having your child's stories on the pages will reinforce the self-esteem in your child. How? Your child will begin to understand that what he or she has to say means something.

There are some general prompts that you can ask your kids to guide them in weaving their stories:

- What are your favorite ....?

- Why do you like about ... the best?

- What do you like to do with it?

- What is so special about ... ?

- What would you like to do when you ...?

- Can you describe .... and what do you know about it?

- What are your likes about ... ?

- What are your dislikes about ... ?

- What have you learned from ... ?

- What have you learned about ... ?

- What do you admire about ... ?

- What makes a good ... ?

- What's the funniest thing that happened on ... ?

- Where and how did you meet ... ?

- What do you do when you meet ... ?

- What do you talk about when you are with ... ?

- Can you draw a picture on ... ?

By combining efforts with your kid, and with little prompts, meaningful scrapbook pages can be achieved.

In this way, you can capture the early growing phases of your child on those pages forever. And these scrapbook pages are bound to light up your kid's and your faces over the years.

"Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different." - Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Happy scrapping with your kid!