DBT Core Mindfulness Skills for Teens: A Worksheet for the What and How Skills

DBT · DBT · Manualised

A teen version of the DBT core mindfulness worksheet for young people aged around 13 to 17. It keeps the adult structure, the three What skills and three How skills each with a short practice, but uses shorter practice windows and teenage examples: noticing a sound, a feeling and a thought in 20 seconds, playing music or shooting hoops with full attention, or putting the phone away to do one thing at a time. It closes with a Wise Mind summary and a practice log.

Underlying mechanism: DBT for Adolescents: Core Mindfulness Skills

What it helps with

  • Teaching adolescents mindfulness as practical skills rather than sitting still for ages.
  • Using everyday teenage situations so practice fits into a normal day.
  • Practising non-judgemental description of feelings like embarrassment or panic.
  • Tracking practice in a simple log that comes back to session.

How clinicians use it

  • Work through the first skills together in session.
  • Offer choice over which Participate activity to use.
  • Give explicit permission to practise imperfectly.
  • Review the practice log at following sessions.

Clinical Implementation Guide

  1. Practise together in session first.
  2. Keep practices short and offer choice.
  3. Review the log at following sessions.

What the worksheet looks like

Core Mindfulness Skills for Teens — worked example
SkillTeen Practice
ObserveFor 20 seconds, notice one sound, one feeling and one thought
ParticipateShoot hoops, play music or walk to class with full attention
One-mindfullyEat a meal or listen to a friend with the phone put away
EffectivelyAsk what doing what works would have looked like, instead of winning

Clinical cautions

Mindfulness practice can occasionally bring up distressing thoughts or feelings. Keep practices short and eyes-open to start. Universal classroom mindfulness has not been shown to help every young person, so use this within a formulated treatment plan. This tool does not diagnose any condition and is not a substitute for individual face-to-face therapy or for emergency crisis support. Anyone in immediate distress should contact their local emergency service or crisis line.

References

  1. Rathus, J. H., & Miller, A. L. (2015). DBT skills manual for adolescents. Guilford Press.
  2. Zoogman, S., Goldberg, S. B., Hoyt, W. T., & Miller, L. (2015). Mindfulness interventions with youth: A meta-analysis. Mindfulness, 6(2), 290-302.
  3. Linehan, M. M. (2015). DBT skills training handouts and worksheets (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

Part of

DBT Core Mindfulness

Related worksheets

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