Confidence Code Workbook for Tween Girls (Ages 8–12)

by Alex Greyson

Her door slams.

Not loud on purpose. Just enough to end the conversation.

Some days she holds it together. Other days, the group chat explodes and someone goes quiet. She sits on her bed, phone in hand, rereading the message, picking it apart. What did she mean? Did I say too much? Not enough?

She types a reply. Deletes it. Rewrites it. Adds an emoji. Removes it. Her stomach tightens. What if this is the message that makes everything worse?

She has the feelings. She doesn't have the words yet.

That's what this workbook is for. Inside:

• The sentences she can use out loud before the moment shows up — "No thanks. I'm good." "That's not my thing." "I don't want to."

• Three things she said yes to this week that she wanted to say no to

• The one-circle friendship test — does she feel better after hanging out with her, or worse?

• The "read it, then rewrite it" pages — a real scenario, then the space where she writes what she would have done

• The page that starts with "mad" and works down to what's really there — embarrassed, left out, not invited

• The values she circles — the five or six she keeps coming back to when she has to decide something hard

• A six-step cool-down for when she can feel the door-slam coming

• Two bravery plans — one for when someone is mean to her, one for when she sees it happen to someone else

• A seven-day feelings tracker. The feeling. What set it off? What she did. What she could do next time. Seven days in, she sees a pattern she missed before.

Skip the workbooks that want her to color a rainbow of her feelings. This one wants her to use words. It doesn't tell her to "believe in herself." It hands her the questions that show her who she already is. It doesn't say "you are enough." It hands her the pages where she works it out in her own handwriting.

Every page was reviewed before print by C. Forster, MD, Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Hand her the workbook.