You booked the appointment weeks ago. You spend fifteen minutes explaining, the GP listens, and you leave with something along the lines of a lot of children are like this at that age, let us see how things go. You are in the car park before you realise nothing was actually decided, and you have no idea what happens next.
This is an extremely common outcome and usually nothing went wrong. The appointment was short, the concern was difficult to summarise under pressure, and the conversation ended with reassurance because no specific decision had been put on the table. It is also largely preventable, and mostly through preparation rather than persistence.
Book a long appointment
This is the highest value thing on the entire list, and the one most people skip. A standard consultation is built for one straightforward problem. It is not built for a conversation about development, behaviour and school.
When you book, say that you want to discuss concerns about your child's behaviour and attention and would like a longer appointment. Reception will usually accommodate that if you ask at the time of booking, and will usually not be able to if you ask on arrival. It may cost more. It is worth it, because the alternative is often a second appointment anyway.
Where practical, consider going without your child, or with another adult who can take them out of the room. Discussing your child's difficulties in front of them limits what you will say, and most parents soften things considerably when the child is listening.
Lead with frequency, not with a label
Open with what happens, how often, and where. Something like: homework takes ninety minutes for twenty minutes of work, five nights a week, it has been like that all year, and his teacher has emailed twice about him not starting tasks. That gives the GP something to act on within the first thirty seconds.
Compare that with opening on I think he might have ADHD. It sounds more direct and it actually gives the GP less, because it invites a conversation about whether you are right rather than a conversation about what is happening. You can absolutely say ADHD is what prompted you to come. Say it after the specifics.
She never listens
She needs an instruction repeated four or five times before she starts, most mornings, worse with the television on
He is disorganised
Three jumpers and two lunch boxes lost this term, forgets his homework diary about twice a week
She melts down over nothing
An outburst lasting twenty minutes or more roughly four afternoons a week, almost always between pickup and dinner
Every observation should answer three things: how often, how long, and where.
If you have been keeping a daily record, this is where it earns its keep. Bring a summary rather than the raw notes, because a GP cannot read four weeks of entries in a consultation.
Bring evidence from outside the house
School reports, an email from a teacher, a note from after school care. Whether the same pattern appears away from home is one of the first things anybody assessing your child will ask about, and having a documented answer moves the conversation forward considerably. Without it, the honest answer is often that nobody knows yet, and that tends to result in wait and see.
Say what you have already tried
List the strategies you have used and what happened with each, including the ones that made no difference. Reward charts, visual timetables, earlier bedtimes, removing screens, sitting with them through homework.
This does two things. It demonstrates the difficulty has persisted through reasonable attempts to address it, which is directly relevant. And it stops the appointment being spent on suggestions you worked through eighteen months ago, which is one of the more demoralising ways for these conversations to go.
Ask for a next step, out loud
This is the part most often left out, and it is the part that determines whether the appointment achieved anything. Before it ends, ask directly what the next step is.
If a referral is appropriate, ask who to, whether there is a public option locally as well as a private one, and roughly how long the wait is likely to be. If a referral is not appropriate yet, ask what specifically would need to change for it to be. Then ask for these:
- What else could explain what I am describing? This is the question that gets sleep, hearing, vision and anxiety properly considered.
- Should we check hearing and vision first? Often sensible, usually quick, and it removes an alternative explanation.
- Is there a public pathway here as well as a private one? Local knowledge you cannot easily get elsewhere.
- What should I be recording between now and the next appointment? This turns waiting into preparation.
- When should I bring this back to you? A review date is what converts a single appointment into a process.
Ask the last two even when everything else has gone well. A concrete recording task plus a review date is what stops a promising appointment quietly evaporating.
If you feel dismissed
Sometimes the response is that your child will grow out of it, or that this is normal for the age. That may well be correct. It is also a difficult answer to act on when you are the one living with it every afternoon.
Two questions help here. Ask what would change your view, which turns a closed answer into a threshold you can work towards and gather evidence against. And ask for a review appointment in a set period, six or eight weeks say, which gives the concern somewhere to go instead of requiring you to start the whole conversation again from scratch in six months.
If you still do not feel heard, seeing a different GP is reasonable and extremely common. When you book, ask whether anyone in the practice has a particular interest in child development or paediatrics. That varies a great deal between doctors in the same clinic and reception usually knows.
Afterwards
Write down what was said while it is fresh, including anything you were asked to do and any date you were given. Then start recording, because whatever the next step turns out to be, it will go better with a few weeks of specifics behind it. See how to track your child's ADHD symptoms at home for what that looks like in practice.
Frequently asked questions
Should I take my child to the appointment?
For the first conversation, many parents find it easier to go without them, or with another adult who can take them out of the room. You will speak more freely, and hearing a list of their own difficulties is unpleasant for most children. If the GP wants to see your child, that can happen at a follow up.
How much detail is too much?
Aim for a page. Three or four specific examples with frequencies, a line on what the school has said, a list of what you have tried, and your questions. A GP cannot absorb twenty pages in a consultation, and handing over a large document tends to mean none of it gets read during the appointment.
Can the GP diagnose ADHD themselves?
Generally the diagnosis is made by a paediatrician or a child and adolescent psychiatrist rather than by a GP, though the GP is central to getting there and to ongoing care afterwards. Arrangements vary across states and territories. See getting an ADHD assessment for your child in Australia for how the pathway usually works.
What if my partner disagrees that there is a problem?
Go anyway, and say so at the appointment. Differences between adults are common and are information rather than an obstacle, and they often reflect different times of day or different demands rather than one person being wrong. It is better raised openly than discovered later in the assessment.
Is it too early to raise this if my child is very young?
It is reasonable to raise a concern at any age. What changes with age is how it will be approached, and for younger children a period of watching, with records kept, is a common and sensible response rather than a brush off. Ask for that watching period to have a review date attached so it does not simply drift.