It is easy to lose yourself while trying to parent a child with anxiety or OCD. In fact, it can be hard not to. We might have ongoing thoughts about how to help our child. We might be consumed with worry about our child’s future.
Ultimately we want our kids to live a life where they walk towards their anxiety or OCD fears and discomfort. The more they build those anxiety and OCD skills, the more resilient they will become. Natural exposures can help on two fronts. If your child is not ready to commit to formal ERP (Exposure Response Prevention), the main approach in OCD treatment, doing natural exposures can be a great first step. Second, we want our kids to develop an organic, authentic way of dealing with anxiety or OCD. When they learn how to create natural exposures when faced with triggers, they learn how to live their life while keeping anxiety or OCD at bay. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore how natural exposures can help and how to get them started.
It can be difficult having a child with both chronic health issues and anxiety or OCD. Often there is a symbiotic relationship between them. Anxiety and OCD can hijack health issues and make them worse. Stress and worry make health issues worse. It is a vicious cycle that some kids struggle to break. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I talk about how to help a child with both chronic health issues and anxiety or OCD.
We all want our kids with anxiety or OCD to use coping skills to deal with anxiety, overwhelm, and dysregulation. But what happens when they refuse to use them? In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast, I talked to my go-to expert on coping skills, best-selling author and therapist, Janine Halloran. In this episode, Janine and I discuss why some kids refuse to use coping skills and what approaches to use in order to help them embrace these tools.
One of the most common anxiety themes is the fear of choking. Kids with this fear often hyperfocus on what they eat and how they eat. At its worst they can avoid all sorts of foods that they feel are “unsafe.” This can limit their diet and cause nutritional issues. In this week’s Youtube video I talk to kids and teens about the fear of choking and what they can do to overcome it.
We only have a small part to play in our child’s anxiety or OCD success. It is their journey and we are only one piece of that puzzle. But that is a puzzle piece we can work on! Often our own erroneous beliefs, limitations or fears create unintentional barriers to our child’s long term success with anxiety or OCD. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore some of those beliefs and fears and how we can address them.
We all care about what other people think on some level. But does your child stress over what people think? Do they worry people don’t like them? Does it consume them and make them socially anxious? Caring too much about what people think can impact their self-esteem and create mental health struggles like social anxiety. In this week’s Youtube video, I talk to kids and teens about how to overcome caring too much about what other people thin.
There are many times when the actual theme of our child’s anxiety or OCD can undermine their ability to get help. How are we supposed to help our kids (or clients/patients) when the very nature of helping is triggering their anxiety or OCD? In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore the most common ways anxiety and OCD themes get in the way of helping and what parents and therapists can do when it happens.
Teaching our kids to trust their gut instinct can be a lifesaver. But what do we do when anxiety or OCD feels like gut instinct? What if intuition is really their OCD magical thinking in disguise? In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore the differences between gut instinct and intuition vs anxiety and OCD.
The best ways to directly help our kids with anxiety or OCD is through effective treatment, but there are some side dishes that can aid in their progress. When we help others it can improve self-esteem, mood, and purpose. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast, I discuss how having our kids help others can actually help them as well.
Having a child with anxiety or OCD can be a challenge, but when it impacts eating, it can become a major health issue. Many kids with anxiety or OCD struggle to eat for many different reasons. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore common core fears that drive restrictive eating and what you can do if your child has ARFID (Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) or is working their way towards it.
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.
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