Purpose: To compare three ways of assessing self-awareness in children with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to propose a model of child anosognosia. Method: Five single cases of children with severe TBI, aged 8–14, undergoing metacognitive training. Awareness was assessed using three different measures: two measures of metacognitive knowledge/intellectual awareness (a questionnaire and illustrated stories where child characters have everyday problems related to their executive dysfunction) and one measure of on-line/emergent awareness (post-task appraisal of task difficulty). Results: All three measures showed good feasibility. Analysis of awareness deficit scores indicated large variability (1–100%). Three children showed dissociated scores. Conclusions: Based on these results, we propose a model of child self-awareness and anosognosia and a framework for awareness assessment for rehabilitation purposes. The model emphasizes (1) the role of on-line error detection in the construction of autobiographical memories that allow a child to build a self-knowledge of his/her strengths and difficulties; (2) the multiple components of awareness that need to be assessed separately; (3) the implications for rehabilitation: errorless versus error-based learning, rehabilitation approaches based on metacognition, rationale for rehabilitation intervention based on child’s age and impaired awareness component, ethical and developmental consideration of confrontational methods.