Clare Rowe, Child Psychologist speaks about what to expect when you book an appointment with a child psychologist. [ReachOut.com] As a parent, if you've made the decision that you need to seek out professional help for your teenager in your family, it can be really daunting about what the processes is. What’s really important is that you connect and find the right psychologist for you. So there are a tonne of psychologists working in a whole bunch of different areas and you need to find someone that specialises in not just the age group of your teenager but the difficulties that you and your family are experiencing. One of the questions that parents often ask me is “Do they need to prepare for the first session with a psychologist?”. Essentially you don't need to prepare anything - though you can get a bit flustered in the session and often forget things that you meant to tell the psychologist so it might help if you sit down beforehand, yourself or with a partner, and just shut down a few things about your concerns about your child and how long those difficulties have been there for. [Write Down. Your concerns. How long those difficulties have been there.] And another question parents often ask me is “Who comes to the appointment?”. And this is really something that you need to discuss with the psychologist when you going to make the appointment. Depending on the age of your child and the situation, it may be that the psychologist would like to talk to you first alone as parents or it may be that they go straight into child sessions. And of course parents often say to me on the phone …”But I don't think I’m going to get my 15 year old teenage son to come to an appointment – what do I do then?” Well, there's nothing stopping you from going along yourself for an appointment and the psychologist will be able to give you guidance and support to see if they can work with you to help your child. In the future it may be that you can get that fifteen year old there. [What to expect] Coming to see a psychologist for the first time can be understandably nerve-wracking, but look this appointment is just all about you getting to know the psychologist and importantly the psychologist getting to know you and your family and the difficulties that you're experiencing at the moment. So so come with an open mind and come prepared to discuss not just the current situation, but perhaps a little bit of information about the developmental history of your teenager and a little bit about your family history. Another purpose of that first session is for yourself and the psychologist to set some collaborative goals about what you would like to achieve in future sessions. [Future sessions] Future sessions are going to be different for everyone, but it's really important that you try to stay committed and engaged with the process with your psychologist. A psychologist who works with young people should also be able to offer some guidance to parents about some strategies that you can use to best support the young person in your home. [ReachOut.com] This video was produced with the help of 90seconds Productions on behalf of ReachOut Australia.