Anxiety and OCD often make our kids push back on help. It might create an us vs them mentality in their mind. It might make them spin their wheels thinking about how they can avoid therapy, hide their compulsions or get others to give in to their anxiety or OCD. Unfortunately, this approach is a boomerang that only winds up hurting them and their long-term progress in the end. In this week’s Youtube video, I talk to kids and teens about how to be honest with themselves about their view of the help they are receiving. I encourage them to take the wheel and start steering their own journey while welcoming the support that surrounds them.

There are many times when the actual theme of our child’s anxiety or OCD can undermine their ability to get help. How are we supposed to help our kids (or clients/patients) when the very nature of helping is triggering their anxiety or OCD? In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore the most common ways anxiety and OCD themes get in the way of helping and what parents and therapists can do when it happens.

Your child’s OCD doesn’t stay neatly in its lane. It involves everyone around them, especially their family. It will try to get family members involved in their compulsions. It will use family as a tool to grow OCD. Knowledgeable family members get this. That is why family members will often pull back their accommodations and their entanglement in growing the OCD. When family members pull back, it is common for OCD to feel the rage of not being fed. This might overcome your child or teen in that moment. In this week’s Youtube video I talk to kids and teens about how to handle the anger that comes when family members won’t accommodate their OCD and how to see the long term benefit of this type of support.