Excuse the long time user changing username due to retaining privacy.

I saw a GP this morning about concerns I have about my 8yo and I have made a follow up appointment with the GP who will check her over and refer to Child psychologist/psychiatrist.

I am wondering what I should tell DD about the appointment. I don't want to say "because of the way you are, I've made an appointment...". Any advice? Thanks

Depending on what exactly they are checking and what's going on and their understanding of it all I'd go for the 'wanting to know a bit more about you' kind of line.

If they are aware that something's up or are unhappy then maybe 'to see if we can make things better for you' line would work better.

With my kids with ASD and ADHD we've used the 'your brain simply works differently and so we need to learn more to help you better, it's not wrong or bad, just different.' But that may not work in your situation.

But I think if you can cast it as a 'help us to understand and help you better' kind of thing then they are less likely to think of themselves as broken, wrong, bad or something not being right.

Thank you Eleanor. That is really helpful.

We've just been through this with our 8 year old.

We told her that her dad and I thought that her life seemed a bit harder than it should be compared to other kids, and that we were going to talk to someone who could see how they could make her life easier. We'd had other conversations with her along these lines over the last six months, trying to work out what the issue was.

She also seemed to like the concept that the psychologist was going to try to 'get into her brain' and find out how she ticked.

She has a very short attention span, among other issues. I also told her that if we could help her concentrate better, it would help her to be better at gymnastics, which is something she loves. I've been very careful not to put any labels on her (not that I have a clue what's up with her yet!) but at her age she seems to be aware that something's just not quite right.

She was very happy with the explanation, and happily went through the testing process on Tuesday. After the testing, she had lots of questions, and we've been sure to answer them as truthfully as we can.

The assessment was quite thorough, and we're now waiting for the report from the psychologist.

yeah, this is similar to how we talk about things.

my oldest is being assessed for dyslexia at the moment and i've done a lot of talking with him about how it will help his teacher understand him better and how she will know what he might find it really hard to do (he really struggles with writing but is good at reading etc). we also talked a lot about some of the more well known people who have dyslexia who have gone on to change the world despite their challenges.

Thanks so much for your replies.

Dorrie your post suited our situation and your approach was so useful, I used it. Thank you.