OCD and Numbers: How to Help Our Kids Break Free Numbers can imprison our kids and turn them into counting machines. Often kids with OCD will have a favorite number or set of numbers. They might have a hated number or set of numbers. They might have to do things in evens or odds, but never both. In this week’s Youtube video, I talk to […]
Interview with Dr. Shefali | Helping Mothers Turn Pain into Power Dr. Shefali is a prominent clinical psychologist and the New York Times best selling author of The Conscious Parent and The Awakened Family. In her new book, A Radical Awakening, she talks to women about how to take their pain and turn it into power. According to Oprah Winfrey, “The world needs to know. […]
Helping Kids When OCD Makes them Fearful of Lying OCD likes to bother kids about many things. It likes to tell them they might do something they would never do. It makes them question what they say and how they say it. Often with Moral OCD, kids will become fearful of lying. They might worry that they will lie, that they did lie or that […]
When You Hit Compassion Fatigue with Your Child’s Anxiety or OCD None of us signed up to raise a child with anxiety or OCD. It wasn’t what we dreamed of when we poured over all the pregnancy and parenting books. And yet, here we all are, trying to not only survive, but thrive with our kids and their struggles. What happens when compassion runs dry? […]
How Understanding Anxiety & OCD Themes Can Help Your Child Anxiety and OCD come in many flavors. Often we even name these flavors with various titles like symmetry OCD, Harm OCD, Separation Anxiety, Emetophobia etc. Does it really matter what theme of anxiety or OCD my child has? Yes and no. There are pitfalls to wearing blinders and only focusing on your child’s anxiety or […]
How Confessing OCD Thoughts Grows Your Child’s OCD Many parents don’t realize that when our kids “confess” their ocd thoughts, they are often partaking in an OCD compulsion. Confessing behavior is almost always missed by parents. They often readily offer reassurance not realizing they are actually talking to their child’s OCD, not their child. So regardless of whether your child is getting effective treatment for […]
Why Anxiety or OCD Therapy is Not Enough for Our Kids Many of us think that if only we can find a qualified anxiety or OCD child therapist, all of our child’s struggles would go away. I wish that were true. I wish that was the case for the children that I have treated and for my own children. But the truth is, as parents […]
How Avoidance Grows Our child’s Anxiety or OCD Most parents don’t see avoidance as an integral part of their child’s anxiety or OCD. They often don’t realize that avoidance is one of the fastest ways to grow anxiety. It is also one of the most common types of compulsions in OCD. In this week’s Youtube video for kids and teens, I discuss how avoidance grows […]
How to Help Our Kids when Anxiety and OCD Lead to Depression Having anxiety or OCD can be depressing. It can make your child feel hopeless, overwhelmed and discouraged. It can rob them of the things they used to enjoy one fear and one compulsion at a time. Clinical Depression can be a comorbid condition with anxiety or OCD, but in this Youtube video I […]
How Self-Esteem Plays a Role in Kids with Anxiety or OCD Anxiety and OCD will often take a swing at our child’s self-esteem. It can do that with the anxious or intrusive thoughts it bombards them with. It can do that by paralyzing them with fear, as they watch their peers not struggle. It can also be present alongside anxiety or OCD. It can help […]
How to Help Our Kids Create Daily Structure to Help OCD & Anxiety More and more these days our kids are finding themselves at home. They are often at home doing school work and are socializing more online. The hustle and bustle that used to be many of their lives has taken a hit. As we enter summer in the next few months, schedules altogether […]
Helping Kids with Anxiety or OCD Cope with Grief or Trauma It’s hard enough to have anxiety or OCD, but what happens when your child is hit with grief or trauma? It can feel like a muddy, chaotic mess. Unfortunately life happens and so do tragedies. Our kids are not immune to life happening to them, I wish they were. Anxiety and OCD are opportunistic. […]
How Online Support Can Be A Game Changer for Parents Raising Kids with OCD or Anxiety There are common stories among parents raising kids with OCD or anxiety. Stories of struggling to find a well trained anxiety or OCD child therapist. Stories of feeling isolated and alone. Stories of friends, family or the school not fully getting the depths of their child’s struggles. These are […]
Why Mental Health Professionals are Missing Signs of OCD When you get assessed by a mental health professional you assume that they would be well versed in all possible diagnoses. You assume they will identify, diagnose and treat any possible mental health struggle. Unfortunately that assumption is not only wrong, but dangerous. OCD seems to be the step-child of mental health education and training. Which […]
How to Motivate Our Kids to Work on Anxiety or OCD One of the biggest challenges parents face when raising a child with anxiety or OCD is…motivation. How do we motivate our kids to face their fears? How do we motivate our kids to sit in discomfort? How do we motivate them to even talk about their struggles. That can feel like an uphill battle. […]
