One in 10 people will have a seizure at some point in their life. About 0.6% of kids have active epilepsy. If you imagine an elementary school with 500 students, that’s about 3 kids.
The highest incidence of pediatric seizures is in the newborn period and then it drops dramatically; it’s lowest in adolescence and continues to gradually increase as a function of age. Febrile seizures are most common in children between 6 months and 6 years old. We rarely see febrile seizures in kids over 6 years old in the absence of other underlying risk factors. This is great because it means that kids can “outgrow” the risk of a seizure recurrence with febrile seizures and certain types of seizures in epilepsy syndromes we see in children.
Early referral to a specialist can be important to assuring an accurate diagnosis and effective treatment. Useful pointers for primary care providers can be found in the link: https://providernews.seattlechildrens.org/managing-epilepsy-and-seizures-a-qa-with-dr-rusty-novotny/