Verified by 
Key points
- Consider older children’s personalities and how testing information may affect them before sharing.
- Sharing test information with children can help them understand why they struggle in some areas.
- Emphasize the importance of effort, regardless of test results, regarding intellectual ability.
- Help your children consider carefully whether to share test results with their peers and how to do so.
Parents often grapple with when and how to discuss their children’s strengths and weaknesses with them, especially in academic or cognitive areas. This issue is particularly relevant for parents whose children undergo evaluations to identify learning issues like dyslexia or attentional issues like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
For younger children, this testing can feel like a series of games, even if you and the evaluator indicate that its purpose is to better understand their learning style. Older children tend to be more aware of how they are doing in school, so you can explain more directly that the purpose of testing is to discover why aspects of school are hard for them. If they grasp the purpose of testing, they may naturally wonder about their results, and you'll need to decide what to share and how. Some evaluators assist you with this, but others may leave it up to you.
Typically, assessments for learning disabilities and ADHD involve administering IQ tests, academic achievement tests, and other tools measuring various aspects of the learning process. The results will, therefore, include information about your child’s presumed intellectual ability and current level of performance across a range of measured domains (e.g., reading comprehension, computational skills, short-term memory, processing speed).
Here are essential considerations and tips for determining what to tell your children and how to deliver the information. The key is to think about their personalities and how they might be affected by the results, as well as how their peers might respond if your children were to share these results with them.
One possibility: Testing results were as good as you could have expected
If your children receive a diagnosis from testing but have a measured IQ or intellectual ability higher than that of many of their same-age peers, consider how they might respond to this news and ask yourself if it is something you should share.
Will your children’s belief that they are gifted encourage them to work harder or to give up in the face of future challenges? Do they have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset?
Psychologist Carol Dweck coined these terms, and her research suggests that those with a fixed mindset will give up in the face of challenge because they assume that struggling is evidence that they are not gifted and that no amount of effort will change the outcome.
In contrast, those with a growth mindset will persist in the face of adversity, imagining that their efforts contribute significantly to their successful outcomes. While many children have a fixed mindset regarding their intelligence, you can work to change this inaccurate perception. And this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t share information with them about their intellectual ability. But if you do, remember to emphasize the importance that effort plays in any outcome, regardless of ability.
Another Possibility: Testing results were more disappointing than expected or desired
For any students who want to feel successful in school, knowing they’re not doing as well as they would like can impact their self-esteem. In part, the impact depends on whether they embrace a growth or fixed mindset, as mentioned above. Many of us get our worth and validation by looking at how we stack up with others, so our confidence can waver when we realize we are not as good as we thought we were at something or when we believe that others are more accomplished than we are—at least at that moment.
Although you may not want your children to realize their weaknesses so early in their lives, doing so can actually be a gift for them. This is because they will be better equipped to persist in the face of challenges once they recognize that only with effort can things change and improve. This lived knowledge will continue to enable them and motivate them to persist.
You may want to say that for everyone, some things come more easily, and others are harder to accomplish. Your goal is for your children to understand that it is an illusion to believe that individuals who seem gifted achieve success effortlessly. You want them to recognize that those who achieve greatness dedicate time and practice to their skill, working much harder than many others.
Here are a couple of examples from the sports world. During off-season workouts, Kobe Bryant took between 500 to 1,000 shots each day, according to Baxter Holmes, a commentator with ESPN. This is what he did to be the third-leading scorer in basketball history. Michael Jordan, in an interview with Evan Carmichael, said that he may have done his audience a disservice by having them believe that his talent was a gift. Instead, he made clear that his performance was achieved by working every day on his craft, taking each defeat as a challenge to improve and hone his technique and game.
After your children understand their test results, realize it’s not unusual for them to want to share this information about themselves. But before doing so, here are some guiding questions you can ask:
- Are you considering sharing any of what you have learned about yourself with your friends?
Understanding if and why your children feel like sharing this personal information in the first place is a step to helping them figure out what and how to share. Some children are very private about testing information and only feel comfortable letting their teachers know about test results. Others feel a need to be seen and understood more publicly.
- What would you like to tell your friends?
Even if impulsivity isn’t part of your children’s diagnostic picture, kids don’t always do the best job thinking out the consequences of their actions. This is why it’s useful to help them consider the possible effects of sharing their testing information with their peers. Could sharing information about their high intellectual ability be perceived as bragging and ignite unwelcome competition with their peers? Might sharing information about a diagnosis lead to teasing at school?
- How do you hope your friends will respond?
Understanding how your children want this information to be received will help both of you evaluate if the outcome they hope for is likely. It may cause them to re-think if they should share this information at all. By anticipating their peers’ responses, they can revise ahead of time whether they are going to share and how best to do so.
In the end, it’s important your children see their test results not as something that permanently defines them but as a helpful indicator of learning areas that will benefit from more attention and practice. It can be comforting for them to realize where to focus their efforts and to understand that this information may ultimately help their teachers meet their needs more effectively.
