Agoraphobia can prevent our kids from being able to leave the house, be in crowds, go to the movies or travel – just to name a few. It can be a debilitating and life altering disorder and often the signs and symptoms can start in childhood.
Agoraphobia can prevent our kids from being able to leave the house, be in crowds, go to the movies or travel – just to name a few. It can be a debilitating and life altering disorder and often the signs and symptoms can start in childhood.
Anxiety and OCD can rob us of the things we love the most. It can also be a powerful tool to motivate our kids to work on their anxiety or OCD. In this Youtube video I talk to kids and teens about what anxiety or OCD is taking away from them and what things they want to take back
You finally found help for your child with anxiety or OCD but they don’t want to work on it. Now what? That can be beyond frustrating! Especially if it took you a long time to connect with the right resources or help.
It is hard not to want to control our child’s anxiety or OCD journey. It is hard not to have expectations for how it should turn out. It’s human nature to want to do everything in our power to help our kids. But sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves and our children is to recognize what areas we do not control. Sometimes we can make the most progress when we learn to let go of expectations and perceived control.
A common theme among kids with anxiety or OCD is their health. Are they breathing? Are they choking? Is that bump going to lead to a horrible disease? This week I brought Dr. Dawn Huebner onto the AT Parenting Survival Podcast to discuss how to help kids who have health anxiety or OCD.
We all have to experience change, but some of us go kicking and screaming. Change can be scary. It’s the unknown, and the unknown can be anxiety producing. In this week’s Youtube video I talk to kids and teens who fear change and discuss ways to cope when life inevitably throws them change.
We all respond to perceived danger in different ways. It can help to understand the many ways our body and brains can respond to stress, so we are better equipped to handle it when it happens. In this week’s Youtube video I explain to kids and teens the fight, flight or freeze responses to fear and anxiety. I also discuss some ways to work through them.
It can feel so good when anxiety and OCD pack their bags and give you your child back. Heck, give you your home back. So it can be more than jarring when that unwanted guest shows back up at your front door.
Many of us learn how to help our kids with anxiety or OCD, but are we doing enough to help them help themselves? Helping our kids own their journey is key to their long-term success.
Most of us don’t love going to the dentist, but for some of our kids it can throw them into a state of panic and fear. This can become a real barrier for check ups, fillings and tooth extractions. So what can a parent do? In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I talk about how to handle the fear of going to the dentist one small step at a time.
Anxiety and OCD can cause our children to act in ways that can be overwhelming, disheartening and sometimes even hurtful. It is easy to fall into the trap of taking our children’s anxiety or OCD personally. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I talk about the many ways we can take our children’s anxiety or OCD behaviors personally, and what we can do instead.
It might surprise some people that the fear of throwing up, Emetophobia, is one of the most common anxiety and OCD themes. For those of us raising a child with it, it isn’t surprising at all! Sometimes this fear is triggered by an event or experience, but often it is the imagination alone that causes this immobilizing concern. We all throw up and many of us see others throw up, but we are able to move past it without too much residual impact.
We will all fall short sometimes and so will our children with anxiety or OCD. They will avoid, they will crumble, they will give in to their anxiety or OCD. That is all par for the course. More often than not they will view these situations as “failures.” They might beat themselves up or use the experience as evidence that they can’t do it again.
Summer is here and with that comes extra free time for most of our kids with anxiety or OCD. You would think that would be a wonderful thing. Less pressure from school, homework and peer interactions. Less places to be and less things to do. But for some of our kids that extra downtime can actually increase their anxiety or OCD issues.
Anxiety and OCD love to feed on avoidance. It will make our kids avoid all sorts of things. But the most powerful thing it can make them avoid is even talking about anxiety or OCD. When they avoid talking about anxiety or OCD they can’t make progress. It keeps them stuck in a loop that continues to grow anxiety or OCD.
