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.
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.
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.
The idea of going back to school can bring waves of panic for both you and your child. You might want to pretend the first day of school will never happen. Trust me I get it! But there are things we can do in advance to prepare our kids to lessen the likelihood of school refusal. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I talk about some common anxiety and OCD themes that create school refusal and how to work on them before it becomes an issue for next school year.
When we are raising a child with anxiety or OCD it can be all consuming. So consuming that we put everything on hold, including our own mental health. This is a slippery slope because without our own mental stability, we won’t be able to be an anchor for our child. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore why it is so crucial we focus on our own mental health and how this will actually help our children as well.
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.
You’ll often hear the word “fight your OCD.” In fact, one of my favorite books about OCD is called Talking Back to OCD, by John March. But sometimes kids misunderstand what this means (and parents too). When we talk about fighting OCD we are usually talking about a counterintuitive way to push back. A way to approach OCD that may not seem like traditional “fighting” at all.
In this week’s podcast I talk about the counterintuitive way to “fight” OCD and why we need to clarify this with our kids.
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.
It’s hard enough to parent a child with anxiety or OCD, but when your own mental health issues are added to the mix, it can be all-encompassing. But it’s not all bad. Having your own anxiety or OCD issues can help you be a better parent to a child with anxiety or OCD.
It is so tempting to try and rationalize with our child’s OCD. It’s a knee jerk reaction that most of us do at some point. We might try to problem-solve their OCD issues away. We might try to bombard them with facts. We might try to convince them that their compulsive behavior won’t do what OCD says it will do.
