Research that is to be published in November's Cognition & Emotion suggests that Children's negative written narratives are linked to higher levels of anxiety and depression. Prior research with adults suggests that writing causal-explanatory and emotionally disclosing narratives of stressful experiences is related to psychological well-being. However, limited research with children has shown mixed results.

In the study, 9 to 13 year old children were engaged in writing for 3 days under emotional and non-emotional instructions. The children completed measures of depression, anxiety, strengths and difficulties, and somatic symptoms at the beginning and 2 months after the intervention.

It was found that children in the emotional writing group wrote more about negative evaluations, problems, emotions, explanations and coping than children in the non-emotional writing group. Importantly, it was also found that children who wrote more about negative evaluations, problems and explanations subsequently showed higher levels of anxiety, depression and difficulties.

The researchers suggest that this may be due to the limited narrative and emotional regulation skills of the children and concluded that expressive writing may not benefit or even be detrimental to some children.

Web Directions:

Children's narratives and well-being in Cognition & Emotion, Volume 21, Issue 7, November, 2007.