1. History Information should be obtained from the initial pain episode, frequency, nature, and location of pain; relationship to diet, bowel movements, and elimination; and results of various treatments (e.g., change in position, home treatment, treatment with OTC or prescription medications). Information obtained from the parents (or other persons caring for the child) is also helpful. Their differing opinions about the occurrence of abdominal pain and how it occurs can help to observe the impact of the family situation on the child and can help to provide an approach to the management of abdominal pain that satisfies the parents as well. The potential role of parental involvement together in the onset, persistence, and overcoming of pain is emphasized. Family history often includes patients with chronic somatic discomfort or pain, peptic ulcer, headache, “neurotic” or depressive disorders. The family history should also include family members, especially parents, who had related illnesses or similar problems at a similar age. 2. Symptoms Abdominal pain has no fixed location and no obvious pressure points, and can last from a few minutes to tens of minutes, and can be mild or severe. It is often accompanied by nervousness, insomnia, headache and other symptoms, and mostly occurs in nervous infants and children. 3. Psychosocial Psychosocial features of emotional abdominal pain include immaturity, overdependence on parents, apprehension or depression, fear, nervousness, and excessive fussiness. Often parents treat these children as special because of their special status in the family (e.g., only child, youngest of siblings, only boy or girl among many siblings) or because of medical problems (colic, feeding difficulties). Parents are often overly concerned, coddling, obedient and fully responsive to their children’s needs. Attention should be paid to any possible triggers (e.g., illness, family discord, parental separation or death, school-induced stress); evidence of benefits gained from the first episode (what the child avoided due to the pain) or from a second episode (psychosocial gains due to the illness); and the child’s personality traits. School records can reveal the impact of pain on daily activities in the classroom.