In adolescents, diagnosing seizures can be challenging and can lead to many pitfalls. Because seizures are episodic and unpredictable events, they usually do not occur in the doctor's office. Thus, a diagnosis of epilepsy is usually based on information presented by the person with seizures and their family. Together with results of diagnostic tests, doctors determine if the events are seizures and what type. Once a diagnosis of epilepsy is made, sorting out whether the patient's disorder can be classified into a defined group, or an epilepsy syndrome, is done. Knowing the specific epilepsy syndrome can help people understand the cause(s) of the epilepsy, what other problems may be associated with the seizures and what the prognosis or future may be like. For example, some types of epilepsy respond better to medicines than others. Some epilepsy syndromes may be considered "benign" and tend to go away at a certain age, while others are often difficult to control or require lifelong treatment. This article discusses the challenges of sorting out seizures, common seizure types and syndromes, and ways families and caregivers can observe and record seizures. (Contains 2 tables.)