Child psychiatry
An unknown waiting room, an adult never met before and questions about things that are hard to put into words. The worry often starts long before you arrive. The pictures below show what a visit can hold, so the unknown becomes a little more known.
Child psychiatry
A child with a thought bubble showing a brain and a magnifying glass, with a small heart beside them.
About this visual support
Before a child psychiatry visit, it is rarely the conversation itself that stirs the most worry, but everything unknown around it. New premises, an adult one does not know and a situation where one might have to talk about difficult feelings can feel frightening in advance, precisely because one does not know how it works. The dread of the unclear is often heavier than the visit itself.
Pictures help by sketching the visit out beforehand. When the child has already seen, at home, a waiting room, a meeting room and roughly what a clinician does, the unknown shrinks. Knowing that you may sit next to a parent, that you need not answer everything and that the visit comes to an end makes the situation bearable.
One concrete tip: go through the pictures calmly the day before and let the child ask questions, so the hard parts do not first appear on site. End the row with what you will do afterwards, something safe and familiar. You can lay the visit out step by step, with a calming afterwards, in the Routined app.