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Age 6+

My three houses

The good things, the difficult things and the worry things, each in its own house — then one box asking what might help.

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Preview of the My three houses worksheet, showing the good things house, the difficult things house and the worry things house

What it is for

A version of the three houses approach that practitioners have used for years, drawn for Pebble and free to print. Three houses, three questions: what is going well, what is difficult, what are you worried about.

The order is the useful part. A child who starts in the good things house has usually said more by the time they reach the worry house than a child asked about worries first. The sheet makes that order unavoidable by putting the good house on the left.

Using it in a session

  • Always start on the left. Good things first is not politeness, it is what makes the third house possible. Do not let a child jump to the worries.
  • “There are no right or wrong answers” is printed on it. Say it anyway, before they start. Children asked about difficulties by a professional often answer the question they think you want.
  • Let the houses be uneven. A full worry house and an empty good house is a finding, not a problem with how the sheet was completed.
  • Do not skip “what might help me”. It is the only box that asks for action, and it asks who could support them — often the most useful line on the page.
  • Use their words in your recording. What a child writes in the worry house, quoted exactly, carries further in a meeting than your summary of it.

Three houses shows what a child will tell you today, in the room you are in. A sparse worry house is not evidence that there is nothing to worry about.

What is on the sheet

  1. The good things house — what is going well
  2. The difficult things house — what feels hard
  3. The worry things house — what is on their mind
  4. Space to write more under each house
  5. What might help me? — and who could support me
  6. Name and date

Forty-nine worksheets, all free

Built in practice by a working social worker, for children, young people and the people around them. New sheets are added as they are needed.

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