Working on anxiety or OCD is like lining up dominos. Without certain pieces, you aren’t going to get too far. One of the first dominos is trust and communication. Without trust and communication, helping our kids with anxiety or OCD is going to be an uphill battle. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore how parents can improve their trust and communication to set their child up for long-term success.
We are only one piece of the puzzle in our child’s long term success with anxiety or OCD, but our attitude is something we have full control over. How we show up to our child’s struggles can have a big impact. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I talk about our parental attitudes and how to shift them while having self-compassion.
Often our kids with anxiety or OCD have BIG emotions. These emotions can be exhausting or overwhelming for us to handle. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I talk about how to shift our perspective when these big emotions show up and how to turn a dark moment into an opportunity for growth.
Agoraphobia can prevent our kids from being able to leave the house, be in crowds, go to the movies or travel – just to name a few. It can be a debilitating and life altering disorder and often the signs and symptoms can start in childhood.
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.
We all respond to perceived danger in different ways. It can help to understand the many ways our body and brains can respond to stress, so we are better equipped to handle it when it happens. In this week’s Youtube video I explain to kids and teens the fight, flight or freeze responses to fear and anxiety. I also discuss some ways to work through them.
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.
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.
Anxiety and OCD love to feed on avoidance. It will make our kids avoid all sorts of things. But the most powerful thing it can make them avoid is even talking about anxiety or OCD. When they avoid talking about anxiety or OCD they can’t make progress. It keeps them stuck in a loop that continues to grow anxiety or OCD.
How often do we hear from family, friends, and even doctors that we should “wait and see” if it gets worse. We should wait and see if the anxiety or OCD grows bigger. We should wait and see if anxiety or OCD becomes debilitating. We should wait and see if it is truly an issue.
Kids Who Worry Stuffed Animals and Toys Have Feelings Most kids get attached to stuffed animals or cute toys. But what if they thought those objects had feelings and it was their job to keep them safe? When you add anxiety or OCD into the mix, it could become a full time job. It can impact their sleep. What if I roll over them? It […]
Helping Kids with Limiting Beliefs Around Anxiety or OCD I can’t do it. I’ll never beat it. It will always be like this! Those types of limiting beliefs are not only hard to hear, but they can become a self fulfilling prophecy. In this week’s Youtube video for kids and teens I talk about limiting beliefs and how kids can take small steps to slowly […]
Ugly Parenting Moments and How to Repair Them We all have our ugly moments as parents. We all show up in ways we don’t want to show up for our kids with anxiety or OCD. But what do we do after those ugly moments are over? In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore what triggers ugly parenting moments and how we can repair […]
Accommodation vs Validation in Kids with Anxiety or OCD Even though we don’t want to accommodate our child’s anxiety or OCD, it doesn’t mean that we can’t support or reassure our kids. Yes, I said reassure our kids. It’s how we reassure our kids that matters. Do we reassure their anxiety or OCD, or do we reassure them. It is important to validate our children’s […]
How Independence Can Help Kids Crush Anxiety Often our kids depend on others to reduce their anxiety, especially family members. Can you go with me? Can you stay with me? Can you tell me I am okay? Although this can help in the short run, this dependence can disempower kids to help themselves in the long run. In this week’s Youtube video I talk to […]
