Free Therapist Training›Free DBT Toolkit›Diary Card for Teens
Last updated: November 11, 2026
This DBT diary card for teens is a weekly card in plain words. Teens in DBT self-monitor urges, actions and skills on a diary card, and this one adds the rest of a teen's week: hours of sleep, school, homework, arguments at home and time with friends, next to three feelings, the urge to self-harm, thoughts of suicide, and whether each skill helped. A line at the top records who sees the card, and a box records a talk with a parent or caregiver.
The card comes from the free DBT toolkit of the Sentio MFT program, which trains therapists with deliberate practice. It is a companion to the adult DBT diary card, with its own completed example: a week for Sam, an invented 15-year-old in an adolescent DBT program.
This is an optional template from the Sentio MFT program's free DBT toolkit, an original design for you to adapt.
Download the PDFMake a copy in Google Docs
| Name: | Week starting: | Who sees this card: | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day | Hours of sleep | School | Homework | Arguments at home | Time with friends | Sad | Angry | A feeling I pick: | Urge to hurt myself | Did I hurt myself? | Thoughts of suicide | Skills I used and did they help? | What happened today |
| Mon | |||||||||||||
| Tue | |||||||||||||
| Wed | |||||||||||||
| Thu | |||||||||||||
| Fri | |||||||||||||
| Sat | |||||||||||||
| Sun | |||||||||||||
| A talk with my parent or caregiver this week | Something to talk about next session | Coaching calls or texts |
|---|---|---|
How to rate
Feelings, urges and thoughts, 0 to 5: 0 not at all; 1 a tiny bit; 2 some; 3 a lot; 4 really strong; 5 the strongest ever.
Your day: sleep in hours last night; school: all day, part, missed or no school; homework: done, some, none or none due; arguments at home: how many; time with friends: Y or N, in person or online.
Skills: after each skill, write whether it helped: no, a little or a lot.
How to fill in the card
- Fill in your row every night before bed.
- Start with your day: sleep, school, homework, arguments at home and time with friends.
- Rate your feelings, your urge to hurt yourself and any thoughts of suicide from 0 to 5, and write Y or N for whether you hurt yourself.
- Write the skills you used and whether each one helped.
- If an urge gets strong, reach out for coaching the way you and your therapist planned, before you act.
- Bring the card to every session, along with anything you want to talk about.
If you are in crisis
[Your clinic's crisis instructions: who to contact during office hours, after hours, and in an emergency.]
In the United States, call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org, to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. If you are in immediate danger, call 911.
What Does a Completed DBT Diary Card for Teens Look Like?
Sam is an invented client: 15, in an adolescent DBT program with weekly individual sessions and a multifamily skills group that his mother attends with him. His card tracks the urge to hurt himself, thoughts of suicide, sadness and anger, with worry as the feeling he picked, along with sleep, school, homework, arguments at home and time with friends. At the start of treatment, Sam, his mother and his therapist agreed, within the program's policy, that the card stays between Sam and his therapist, that his mother sees what he writes about their talks, and that his therapist will tell his mother if the card shows a safety concern. This week he had urges and acted on none of them.
| Name: Sam | Week starting: Monday | Who sees this card: Me and my therapist. Mom sees what I write about our talks. My therapist tells Mom if I'm not safe. | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day | Hours of sleep | School | Homework | Arguments at home | Time with friends | Sad | Angry | A feeling I pick: Worried | Urge to hurt myself | Did I hurt myself? | Thoughts of suicide | Skills I used and did they help? | What happened today |
| Mon | 6 | All day | Done | 0 | Y | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | N | 0 | None | Tired at school. |
| Tue | 7 | All day | Some | 1 | N | 3 | 4 | 2 | 3 | N | 0 | Self-soothe with music: a lot. Paced breathing: a little. | Fight with Mom about my phone at night. Texted for coaching, then music in my room. |
| Wed | 6 | All day | Done | 0 | Y | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | N | 0 | None | Skills group with Mom tonight. |
| Thu | 7 | All day | Done | 0 | Y | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | N | 0 | Validation, in my talk with Mom: a lot. | Talked with Mom about my phone. We agreed on a time. |
| Fri | 8 | All day | None due | 0 | Y | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | N | 0 | None | Hung out with friends after school. |
| Sat | 9 | No school | None due | 0 | Y | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | N | 0 | None | Basketball with friends. |
| Sun | 8 | No school | Some | 0 | N | 3 | 1 | 4 | 2 | N | 0 | Paced breathing: a little. | Worried about a test on Monday. |
| A talk with my parent or caregiver this week | Something to talk about next session | Coaching calls or texts |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday after dinner, with Mom, about my phone at night. We both stayed calm. My phone charges in the kitchen at 10:30 on school nights now. | Sunday nights. I always feel worse before school. | Tuesday night: texted after the fight with Mom, before the urge got worse. It helped. |
How Sam's Therapist Used the Card
His therapist started Sam's next individual session with the card. It showed no self-harm and no thoughts of suicide. The urge to hurt himself peaked at 3 on Tuesday, after the argument about his phone, and that night he texted for coaching before it got worse. His therapist asked how strong the urge was now and went over his safety plan with him, then reinforced the text and Thursday's talk with his mother, which also shows in his sleep column, and spent most of the session on the item Sam wrote for himself: Sunday nights. They agreed to look at Sunday night again on next week's card.
How Does DBT for Adolescents Involve Caregivers?
Caregivers take part in several modes of DBT for adolescents. The federal Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse, which lists Rathus and Miller (2015) and Miller, Rathus and Linehan (2007) as the treatment's manuals, describes individual therapy, multifamily group skills training, telephone coaching, a therapist consultation team, and optional family therapy and parent training.
In a multifamily skills group, teens and parents attend the same group and learn the same material side by side. Walking the Middle Path, a fifth skills module developed for adolescents and their families, teaches dialectical thinking and acting, validation, and behavior-change principles to reduce family conflict and rigid thinking (Rathus, Campbell, Miller and Smith, 2015). Telephone coaching between sessions is for teens and their family members, and family members get it from a provider other than the teen's individual therapist, such as a skills trainer. Family therapy is optional, and in it therapists aim to help teens resolve family conflict and crises. Parent training sessions are optional too.
Who Sees a Teen's Diary Card?
Decide that with the teen and the family at the start of treatment, within the program's policy and local law. Orientation in adolescent DBT starts with the teen alone and then repeats key parts with parents or other family members, and the treatment agreements include family agreements alongside the client's and the therapist's. That is the time to settle which parts of the card a caregiver sees, what the therapist tells a caregiver if the card shows a safety concern, and who keeps the card between sessions.
The teen card gives that agreement a place: a line at the top for who sees the card, and a box about a talk with a parent or caregiver that the teen can share. Writing the agreement on the card keeps it in view every week, so the teen knows what a caregiver will see, and a family that wants to change it raises that in a session.
How Is the Teen Card Different from the Adult Card?
The teen card trades the adult card's open target columns, medication, alcohol or drugs, and three of its six emotions for the rest of a teen's week: sleep, school, homework, arguments at home and time with friends. School problems and intense conflict with parents are among the quality-of-life-interfering behaviors Miller, Rathus and Linehan describe in adolescents, so the school and home columns give the therapist a daily view of both. Feelings use a 0 to 5 scale in everyday words, and skills are rated no, a little or a lot.
Coaching gets its own box because teens in DBT are told to call before acting on a problem behavior, when coaching can still help; after self-harm, the clinic's crisis instructions apply. They can also call to share good news or to repair the relationship. When a teen's targets include drinking, drug use or another behavior, add a column in the Google Doc or use the open columns of the adult DBT diary card.
Practice the Skill
When a teen's card shows a target behavior, the session turns to a chain analysis with solution analysis woven in. Practice Time Episode 16 walks through DBT problem assessment on camera, and the webinar with Tali Boritz and Shelley McMain covers running a chain analysis that stays useful.
Keep reading
DBT Diary Card, the adult card, with open target columns, medication and a completed example
DBT Chain Analysis Worksheet, the next step when a card shows a target behavior
DBT Target Hierarchy, the stage 1 targets in order, with a quick reference
Free DBT Toolkit, every template in one place
Frequently Asked Questions
What goes on a DBT diary card for teens?
Teens in DBT self-monitor urges, actions and skills on the card. Sentio's teen card adds the rest of the week in plain words: hours of sleep, school attendance, homework, arguments at home, time with friends, three feelings rated 0 to 5, the urge to self-harm, thoughts of suicide, and the skills used and whether each helped. A box records a talk with a parent or caregiver, and a line records who sees the card.
Do parents see their teen's DBT diary card?
That depends on what the teen, the family and the therapist agree at the start of treatment, within the program's policy and local law. In adolescent DBT, orientation starts with the teen alone and key parts are then repeated with parents, and the treatment agreements include family agreements. Sentio's teen card has a line for who sees the card and a box about a talk with a parent that the teen can share.
When does a teen start using a DBT diary card?
Early in treatment. In Dialectical Behavior Therapy with Suicidal Adolescents, Miller, Rathus and Linehan introduce the card at the end of the first session or in the second, and teens are told to complete it and return it to the therapist every week. Going over the card is the first step of each individual session, so a teen sees from the first weeks how the card shapes the session.
Can parents get coaching in DBT for adolescents?
Yes. In DBT for adolescents, family members as well as teens can get telephone coaching between sessions, and family members get it from a provider other than the teen's individual therapist, such as a skills trainer. Teens are told to call before acting on a problem behavior, to share good news, and to repair the relationship.
Is there a printable DBT diary card for teens?
Yes. Sentio's teen card prints as a PDF: the blank card comes first, then the rating guide and how-to steps, then Sam's completed week. The Google Docs copy can be edited for each teen, for example to name the feeling they pick or to add a column for another target. Both are free.
References
Miller, A. L., Rathus, J. H., & Linehan, M. M. (2007). Dialectical behavior therapy with suicidal adolescents. Guilford Press. ISBN 978-1-4625-3205-6. https://www.guilford.com/books/Dialectical-Behavior-Therapy-with-Suicidal-Adolescents/Miller-Rathus-Linehan/9781462532056
Rathus, J. H., & Miller, A. L. (2015). DBT skills manual for adolescents. Guilford Press. ISBN 978-1-4625-1535-6. https://www.guilford.com/books/DBT-Skills-Manual-for-Adolescents/Rathus-Miller/9781462515356
Rathus, J., Campbell, B., Miller, A., & Smith, H. (2015). Treatment acceptability study of Walking the Middle Path, a new DBT skills module for adolescents and their families. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 69(2), 163-178. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.2015.69.2.163
Koerner, K. (2012). Doing dialectical behavior therapy: A practical guide. Guilford Press. ISBN 978-1-4625-0232-5. https://www.guilford.com/books/Doing-Dialectical-Behavior-Therapy/Kelly-Koerner/9781462502325
Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse. (n.d.). Dialectical behavior therapy for adolescents. Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved November 9, 2026, from https://preventionservices.acf.hhs.gov/programs/469/show
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. (n.d.). Get help. Retrieved November 9, 2026, from https://988lifeline.org/get-help/
About This Template
Corrections and suggestions: mabundez@sentio.org.
