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
Learn the many disguises of OCD, including Moral OCD. Moral OCD can make a child worry they might be a bad person or turn into a bad person.
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.
OCD is so sneaky! I often say it is like playing chess with a chess master. The minute your child starts to make progress, OCD can make some head dizzying countermoves. But don’t get too unsteady, in this week’s Youtube video I’m going to break down some of the common countermoves so OCD doesn’t throw your child or teen off track!
OCD comes in many different shapes and flavors. One way it shows up is through the concept of “contamination.” Contamination means something different for each person who suffers from OCD, but they all have two things in common:
Something/someone cannot be touched and should be avoided
Contamination can spread from object to object, person to person (and even place to place)
Having OCD can be a lonely experience. Kids can feel like there is no one else out there who gets their struggles. And really, who can blame them? The media (and even worse social media) often spend their time talking about OCD like it’s a meme or an adjective.
There is one thing we know for sure, OCD likes to play whac-a-mole. OCD will shift and change over time. It wears many disguises and often goes undetected. Would your child or teen know how to spot new OCD themes when they are just starting to form? It is helpful for us as parents to understand what to look for, but even more important for our kids to know themselves!
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.
What’s holding your child back from working on OCD? The answer can be different for each person. Perhaps talking about it feels too scary or embarrassing. Maybe not listening to OCD seems too hard or too risky. For some, it might seem like too much work with not enough payoff. Whatever it might be for your child it is helpful to address those barriers head-on.
OCD is sneaky! It hides in the questions our children ask. It disguises itself with curiosity, constant checking or over apologetic responses. OCD is a family affair and it often gets us as parents to inadvertently grow it on a daily basis.
This is the million-dollar question that people with OCD want to know. Will OCD go away? And the common follow-up question is… When will OCD go away? Ironically these questions are part of what keeps OCD around.
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.
OCD isn’t always a fear. This can confuse not only parents and kids but even therapists. We can be digging and digging feeling like we are missing something when in reality the problem is right in front of us. OCD doesn’t have to be about fear. There are many OCD themes that center around a feeling. These can be feelings of disgust, grossness, not just right or a feeling of incompleteness to name a few.
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.
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.
