From my experience in working with children, especially those in middle school and high school, issues with self-esteem are fairly common. The culprit? Well, to be honest, the majority of the time it’s their own unhealthy thinking patterns. Once those negative thoughts start, if you don’t stop them, they snowball and will have a negative impact on the way you feel and on your overall self-esteem.

From my work with school-aged clients, it’s mostly interactions with peers at school that trigger these negative thoughts. It doesn’t have to be bullying incidents – even hearing a friend compliment another friend’s hair, but NOT complimenting yours can send out a rush of negative thoughts. Or seeing another classmate get attention for their new, fancy, expensive phone, while you are stuck without one or stuck with last year’s model. Yes, bullying and snide comments from other students hurt tremendously and have a devastating affect on self-esteem, but they aren’t necessary for self-esteem to suffer.

It’s not just interactions with classmates though. Self-esteem can be impacted by all sorts of things, including school performance, interactions with siblings, and interactions with parents. As if that wasn’t enough, another big culprit is social media. Most people walk away from periods of social media scrolling feeling worse about themselves than they did before they logged in. The comparison game is to blame. We compare the whole of our lives to someone’s highlight reel – and sometimes the people we compare ourselves to have tools at their fingertips that we don’t, like hairstylists, personal trainers, makeup artists, personal chefs, and photoshopping tools.

Because it’s actually the negative thoughts about these interactions that affect self-esteem, it’s important to try to balance those negative thoughts with positive ones. How? By prompting your brain to do so. You cannot think 2 thoughts at the same time, so if you’re “forcing” your brain to think about something positive, you cannot be thinking negatively at the exact same time. But try telling your 13 year old to think of something positive…. it’s hard! At any age! Even adults struggle with what to think about, even if they know it would help to think of something more positively.

That’s where this worksheet comes in. Instead of struggling to think about something, this worksheet gives them something to think about – and it’s positive things about themselves. Double win. As you can see below, there are 4 “boxes,” each with a prompt to list 4-5 things about themselves. Five of their favorite things about themselves, 4 things about themselves they are proud of, 5 things they are good at, and 4 reasons they are special.

You can click here for the free printable!

This is something that can be done all at once, or one box at a time over the course of 4 days… or, really, however you and your child want to do it. Once completed, it can be helpful to hold onto the worksheet and keep it around, so that your child can look at it when they’re having negative thoughts about themselves. This completed worksheet can be a great reminder about why they’re so awesome, and looking at it may help get rid of those negative thoughts.

As always, if you believe your child needs some professional help and/or expresses a desire to talk to a therapist/counselor, please seek help. You can read the post on my counseling blog site called How to Find a Therapist if you need/want guidance with finding a provider.

Disclaimer: I am a licensed mental health therapist, but I am not your therapist. The information in this article is for general informational purposes only. This article does not create a therapist-client relationship. If you need specific recommendations based on your individual circumstances, please consult with a mental health practitioner near you.