CBT Homework - 3rd Grader

I gave one of my 3rd grade girls a mini-notebook to journal in and within days, I had many more of my little ladies requesting their own journals/diaries. One such student was struggling with being very critical and very negative about people and situations around her. After a session where I introduced the basic concepts of CBT to her, I gave her a little journal and challenged her to do some "thoughts homework" for me - with the promise of eating lunch with me if she completed it. Challenge accepted! I took a page and made spots for her to give 4 examples of a positive and negative thought.

One:

Negative: "I want to have the red one."

Positive: "Blue is a good color."

Two:

Negative: "She got the last one. No fair."

Positive: "I will get one tomorrow."

Three:

Negative: "It will take forever."

Positive: "I will be patient."

Four:

Negative: "She is not my friend".

Positive: "Maybe she doesn't want to hang out."

Not too bad for an 8 year old who had only recently been introduced to these concepts! I was lucky that this student doesn't have an aversion to homework, because having her think through these ideas at home lead to greater generalization and faster improvement of her feelings.

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