This year, we had the pleasure of collaborating with the lovely Gigi, who runs the instagram account ‘mom.ma.g’. She focuses on gentle, holistic parenting and her Instagram is an incredible home for advice and support for all kinds of parents.
We collaborated with her on creating a bunch of templates designed specifically for including photos of special moments along with your daily journaling practice and Gigi made this special Reel sharing tips on how to implement it into your every day which you can view here [link to reel].
We sat down with her as she shared some of the collages she has made in the last month, along with some deeper insights about the practice of gratitude journaling.
How has gratitude journaling influenced your parenting journey and the relationship with your children?
Personally, gratitude journaling helps me focus on the now, which leads me to wanting to stay committed to bonding with my two daughters. At their current young age, journaling helps me focus on taking advantage of the time I have with my daughters right now.
Journaling gives me a place to look back and simply be grateful for the moments I share with my kids and family. These moments don’t have to be anything special like a big trip or some big surprise, they can be simple moments that make me grateful for the family that God has blessed me with. It’s really awesome that PicCollage allows me to include pictures and videos in my journal journey.
What are some practical tips you can give to someone who wants to incorporate gratitude journaling into their daily routine?
My first tip would be to just start small. I started by committing to myself that I will start journaling for a week, so I can try it out. The journal entry itself could be really lightweight so it doesn’t eat up too much of your time. If you find value after the first week, then commit to another week. Ultimately, you should only journal if it brings positivity into your life. I believe that everyone is unique so journaling is not for everyone.
How does using PicCollage help enhance the gratitude journaling experience for both parents and children?
Using PicCollage for gratitude journaling has this awesome ability to combine words, pictures, and video into a collage. My kids and I are both very visual so having the pictures really enhances the moment when we’re either journaling or reflecting on the journal entries. PicCollage is also very easy to use so it doesn’t really add any extra time for me to have a PicCollage journal entry versus a traditional journal entry.
Did you use PicCollage to make anything else special?
Some of the PicCollage templates are pretty cool so I actually use them for many things such as phone screens, Mother day / Christmas cards and the developmental memory collage of my daughters. Here’s a collage of Peace I really like.
As someone with an online presence and as a parent, how do you see technology playing a positive role in promoting connection and mindfulness in parenting and for children particularly
This is an interesting topic, because many older parents have messaged me in Instagram about how they wish they had more access to various parenting ideas when they were raising their little ones. One of the best aspects of technology is the ability to share and receive parenting information and ideas with anybody around the world. I always remind others that my ideas are not always right, they are simply ideas for you to explore and to see if it fits your family and kids. I try to explain the intention behind those ideas so it brings a bit more awareness of how our kids would interpret some of our actions and teaching. Ultimately, my hope is I am able to help other parents who are willing to be more intentional about how they want to raise their kids into happy and well-balanced human beings.
Thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful words, Gigi! Go and check out Gigi’s original Reel on Instagram, where she shows you how to use some of our templates made especially to facilitate gratitude journaling.
We hope you have found this blog post as insightful and helpful as we did! Don’t forget to download PicCollage and check out the gratitude journaling templates that we collaborated with Gigi on – this might even inspire you to start your own collaging, gratitude journaling practice!
