March is a very busy card month in our family. There many
joyous occasions like birthdays, anniversaries and this year; Easter. I love
sending and receiving special occasion cards and want to pass this love on to
my teen daughters, so this weekend I pulled out some cards, our family calendar
and a bunch of new Pilot pens I’d received from Shoplet.com to use and share my
thoughts here with you. While I did receive complimentary products all
opinions, love of a good writing pen and cards are my own.
When talking with my daughters about writing special correspondences,
I learned that sometimes it’s the very act of writing, putting pen to card-stock
that stalls their creative process and I can understand that.
Sometimes a pen
doesn’t feel right in your hand, or it doesn’t glide across the writing
surface, or worse, it leaves blobs of ink behind! I’m happy to report; you’ll
find none of those issues with Pilot Pens! If you want your teens to love
writing, give them a great pen and these easy to follow steps!
1. Pick Your Pen by
doing a writing test:
We each chose a different type of pen from the very nice
collection we’d received. After you pick a pen to try, hand out lined notebook
paper to practice writing on first, that way you won’t ever ruin a card again!
Don’t worry about what they write now. Just let them choose a pen solely on how
it feels and how the ink looks to them. We’ll get to the wording in another
step.
We all loved the cool
pastel color of the Dr. Grip pen that’s light weight and has a cushioned barrel
which feels good in your hand. Personally, I found it to be a little too thick
for me, but I know my senior mother in law would love this pen as her hands
bother her, so I’m gifting this pen and a set of all occasion cards to her.
My teen daughters preferred the fun and sleek looking
Acroball pure white pens with their fine points for their writing styles. Both
are right handed with a light grip and so they enjoyed the feel and flow of the
ink.
I’m a lefty, who turns her paper and tends to bear down on a
pen, so if I’m not using a good pen, I’ll either smudge my previous sentence or
find a glob of ink at pause points in my writing. I had no problem at all with
the Acroball color medium point pen.
My husband chose the Acroball Pro medium point in blue to
sign his card and liked how it felt in his hand and how it didn’t drag on the
card stock. To learn more about any of
these pens, just click on their links and you’ll be taken to Shoplet.com where
you can find them on sale along with a large variety of office supplies.
2. Let your Teen pick
the card:
Whether you buy for one special occasion, or keep an
assortment of cards on hand like I do, it’s very important that you let your
teen choose the card, not just for the visual aspect, but for the statement
inside if any.
3. Give your Teen
Privacy and Time to write:
In other words parents- don’t hover! Nobody likes to write
under pressure with somebody watching them, so be patient! If you want this to be an enjoyable endeavor
for your teens and if you want them to ever go beyond a short sentence or two,
you must allow time to gather their thoughts and then, allow them to practice
writing it out on scratch paper before writing anything on the card.
5. Help your teen
address, stamp and mail their cards:
My girls have seen me do this countless times in their
lives, so they can do this step on their own. The very best way to make it
second nature is to let them take the lead. Give them your address book for
cards going to family friends and relatives, or help them look up a friends
address with the old school way with the phone book or their preferred way,
Google it. Allow them artistic freedom
here as well. If they want to use print instead of cursive writing on the
envelope, let them. It’s their mail to
personalize how they choose.
With a good pen, a nice card and a healthy dose of patience
and understanding from us, we can instill a love of writing not only cards, but
other correspondence that will serve our teens well from middle school and
beyond!
Comments Please:
Do you send out special occasion cards often?
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