Ideas for letters to your child during indirect contact

"Write about your ordinary life."

It's correct advice, and useless at 11pm in front of a blank page. Most people get stuck here, not because they don't care enough, but because the advice doesn't say what ordinary life looks like on a page when you're this far from ordinary.

So here's a starting list. It works for a seven-year-old, and more lightly for a seventeen-year-old.

Subjects that work

• Animals. The dog, next door's cat, a fox in the garden. They need no shared history, work at any age, and nobody has ever objected to them.
• Food, especially when it goes wrong. A cake that collapsed is worth more than one that worked. Things going slightly wrong is the most companionable thing you can offer.
• Weather and seasons. The first frost, the clocks changing, snow. Small anchors in time that never mention how long it's been.
• Small disasters at your own expense. Locking yourself out, burning the toast. You being slightly ridiculous is the easiest thing in the world for a child to receive.

The one that does the most work

Pick a running thread: one continuing project carried through every letter. The tomatoes, the shed, the bike you're fixing.

It gives the letters a spine, so each one is a continuation rather than a fresh attempt. It gives your child something to be mildly curious about, with no obligation attached. And it means you never again sit down wondering what to say.

Twelve unconnected letters do less than one continuing story.

What to steer clear of

Some subjects feel warm as you write them and land badly. Big news about your own life, treats you had without them, and anything you could only know from their social media are the main ones. They're worth checking for before anything goes.

General information, not legal advice. Court process differs between countries and regions; check anything that matters to your case with a qualified lawyer where you live.