Anxiety can fuel our children’s imagination in all sorts of ways. When it is dark and quiet at night it is easy to think of all sorts of what if scenarios that can leave them feeling unsafe.
OCD doesn’t only boss your child around, it bosses the entire family around. It is very easy for kids to get frustrated at family members when they do not do what OCD is demanding them to do. OCD wants the whole family to follow its rules and when family members don’t abide, OCD can pit your child against the whole family.
OCD loves to tell our kids that they’ll ruin things. Maybe it tells them that they’ll ruin a vacation or special occasion. Maybe it tells them that they’ll ruin their favorite belongings. Or maybe it tells them that they’ll ruin their favorite song or show. It doesn’t matter. It’s all the same in the end.
Hidden Superpowers in Kids with OCD
Nobody wants OCD. It can be an overwhelming, debilitating condition. But there are some common strengths in people who have OCD. While learning to crush OCD, it is important that we also celebrate our children’s attributes that make them amazing. Often we miss these things and forget to notice the aspects of our kids that make them wonderful.
OCD will use everything in its power to keep you growing it, including facts. If we search, we can find literally any fact to support OCD’s lies. OCD will often take a fact and exaggerate the risk. OCD will take a fact and scare you into doing more compulsions. OCD will take facts to prove it is right.
When you have OCD you hand over all power to a glitch in your brain. You allow OCD to construct rules, beliefs and compulsions that hold you prisoner. Unfortunately the more you feed this OCD glitch, the bigger the glitch grows. The rules morph, the OCD compulsions shift, and the cycle becomes never ending.
The math is simple. The more compulsions our kids do, the bigger their OCD will grow. And yet, OCD can make it feel more complicated in their head. It can make them go to the mental gym weighing out the dangers. It can make them calculate the risks. It can make them believe that their safety or even their identity is at risk.
So how do they stop fueling their OCD? First, they should learn what things are compulsions. Kids (and parents) often miss compulsions that only consist of avoidance, accommodations or mental activities. Second, they need to build their muscles to not fuel their OCD. The best way to reduce OCD is to cut off the fuel line. That can take time, patience and perseverance – but it is the sure fire way to reduce OCD symptoms in the long-term.