PSP 414: How to Handle OCD Meltdowns Without Making Them Worse

PSP 414: How to Handle OCD Meltdowns Without Making Them Worse

If your child has OCD, you’ve likely witnessed an OCD-driven meltdown—intense distress triggered by an intrusive thought, fear, or the inability to complete a compulsion. These meltdowns can be overwhelming for both you and your child. And while it’s natural to want to soothe their anxiety in the moment, some responses can unintentionally reinforce OCD.

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PSP 413: When Your Child’s OCD & Anxiety Turn Into School Avoidance

PSP 413: When Your Child’s OCD & Anxiety Turn Into School Avoidance

Anxiety and OCD can abruptly put the brakes on our children’s education. This is one of the most disruptive and concerning aspects of our children’s OCD or anxiety. It is a slippery slope that can gain momentum and get out of control rather quickly.

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PSP 412: Improving Our Child’s Life with OCD with Dr. Jonathan Abramowitz

PSP 412: Improving Our Child’s Life with OCD with Dr. Jonathan Abramowitz

How do we help our children with OCD have a better quality of life? Our child’s OCD is more than just Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) therapy. It is more than just their intrusive thoughts and their compulsions.

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PSP 410: Helping Your Child with OCD or Anxiety When They Feel Hopeless

PSP 410: Helping Your Child with OCD or Anxiety When They Feel Hopeless

Struggling with Anxiety and OCD can make kids feel hopeless. Hopelessness can lead to depression and a lack of motivation to work on their issues.

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PSP 409: When You See Anxiety or OCD in Others Kids

PSP 409: When You See Anxiety or OCD in Others Kids

As you become more educated about anxiety and OCD, you most likely will start seeing it all around you. It can be hard to stomach seeing a child struggling with anxiety or OCD, especially if their parents aren’t aware of what they are truly dealing with.

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PSP 408: How to Use Mel Robbins’ Let Them Theory with Kids with Anxiety or OCD

PSP 408: How to Use Mel Robbins’ Let Them Theory with Kids with Anxiety or OCD

I quickly fell in love with Mel Robbins’ book The Let Them Theory. It is such a simple, and yet powerful approach to living your life. Throughout the book I thought about how the Let Them Theory could be adapted to parents, and in particular, those of us raising kids with anxiety or OCD.

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PSP 407: Helping Kids with OCD and Magical Thinking

PSP 407: Helping Kids with OCD and Magical Thinking

OCD can convince our kids that they have control over the uncontrollable. That is at the heart of magical thinking OCD compulsions. Magical thinking is when OCD convinces a person that if they do or don’t do something – they can prevent something from happening.

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PSP 406: How to Handle Tourettic OCD with Dr. John Piacentini

PSP 406: How to Handle Tourettic OCD with Dr. John Piacentini

Not every OCD theme is about a fear, sometimes it is about a feeling. That is the case with Tourettic OCD. Tourettic OCD is not triggered by an intrusive thought, but rather a somatic urge. Compulsions can include sudden, repetitive movements or vocalizations.
Not every OCD theme is about a fear, sometimes it is about a feeling. That is the case with Tourettic OCD. Tourettic OCD is not triggered by an intrusive thought, but rather a somatic urge. Compulsions can include sudden, repetitive movements or vocalizations.

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PSP 405: How to Improve Communication when Dealing with Your Child’s OCD or Anxiety

PSP 405: How to Improve Communication when Dealing with Your Child’s OCD or Anxiety

Effective communication is one of the most essential aspects of parenting a child with OCD or anxiety. When communication breaks down, our ability to support them directly becomes limited.

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PSP 404: How Your Childhood Impacts How You Handle Your Child’s Anxiety or OCD

PSP 404: How Your Childhood Impacts How You Handle Your Child’s Anxiety or OCD

We don’t just leave our childhood in the past. It comes with us, altering our lens of how we view life. This includes how we view and interact with our child’s anxiety or OCD.

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PSP 403: Parents at Odds: How Disagreements Impact Progress with Anxiety and OCD

PSP 403: Parents at Odds: How Disagreements Impact Progress with Anxiety and OCD

When parents disagree on how to approach their child’s anxiety or OCD, they do more than irritate each other, it impacts their child’s progress with anxiety or OCD.

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PSP 402: Knowing When to Step Back: Supporting Your Child with OCD or Anxiety Without Overpushing

PSP 402: Knowing When to Step Back: Supporting Your Child with OCD or Anxiety Without Overpushing

Trying to help a child with OCD or anxiety is not an easy task. One reason for that is because we are not steering the ship. This is not our battle. This is not our struggle. Although trust me, I know we have our own struggles on this journey raising a child with OCD or anxiety.

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PSP 401: Are We Inadvertently Contributing to Our Child’s Helplessness?

PSP 401: Are We Inadvertently Contributing to Our Child’s Helplessness?

We all want our kids with anxiety or OCD to believe in themselves. We want them to try hard things. We want them to push through their fears. But we only have so much control on how motivated they are to do those things to help themselves.

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PSP 400: The Difference Between Reframing Anxiety Thoughts vs OCD Thoughts

PSP 400: The Difference Between Reframing Anxiety Thoughts vs OCD Thoughts

How we reframe anxious thoughts vs OCD thoughts are vastly different. Understanding the nuances of how we talk to these two disorders differently is crucial for any parent trying to help their child.

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PSP 399: Why the Core Fear Matters in Anxiety and OCD

PSP 399: Why the Core Fear Matters in Anxiety and OCD

Does it really matter if you understand the core fear related to your child’s anxiety or OCD. The short answer – yes. 

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