Let’s not kid ourselves, writing is difficult. It's hard work.  Most adults, if truthful, would rather get a tooth pulled than sit down and write a short story. How then does reluctant writer encourage and teach their children to excel at something they despise? What is the solution? Below I have a listed five suggestions that I have used in my classroom; suggestions that I hope will help you to effectively develop and encourage your children as writers.

Write yourself!  If it were up to me I would force every elementary school teacher in the country to write a short chapter book and read it to their class.  If kids see the teacher writing, they will want to do it too.   Imagine the impact it would have on your kids if you did the same.

Don’t evaluate a child’s writing based on adult expectations.  Don’t fill the poor kid’s page with red ink.   Be selective in what you choose to point out as faults.  We don’t expect little kids to swing a golf club like Tiger Woods.  Don’t do the same thing with their writing.  Talk about the good stuff first, then choose one thing they can work on (preferably not grammar and spelling every time).

Write about fun stuff. Poor content choices kill the love of writing. One day I asked the kids in my class to write about some practical jokes that they would like to play on their mothers. I didn’t hear a pin drop for twenty five minutes. The kids tore into their writing journals like sprinters coming out of the blocks. Not only did they want to write, they all wanted to share what they had written. This created a whole cycle of revisions and editing, because they wanted their writing pieces to be perfect when it was their time to share.

I firmly believe that writing is the product of hard work, but there is a caveat to this truth.  Let me delve into the world of sports to explain my point.  Kids love to play soccer, but even the best of soccer games needs to come to an end.  There will come a time when the kids get so tired that playing any longer will just kill the game.   They stop running, they lose interest in the ball and they start to pick flowers.  Writing is no different.  Authors need to take time away from their writing to recharge their batteries.  Kids are no different; they need to write intensely for short periods of time (20-40 minutes) and work on short pieces of writing (things they can finish in one or two sessions).  Long essays, that take weeks or even months to finish, kill the game.   

Kids write to express themselves, just like you and I. If we rip them apart for their ideas, they will eventually stop trying. Any parent, who scolds her kid for missing the net in a soccer game, destroys the initiative that helped the kid try to kick the ball in the first place. Stay positive and be patient. Good teachers find ways to lead or guide learners to their own mistakes. Self correction is much more powerful then teacher correction.