It is wonderful when our kids want to do a good job and excel in school. But what happens when that determination actually sabotages them? What happens when it makes them stay up all night working on assignments that should have taken a few minutes? What happens when they are so consumed with their good grades and school performance that they are filled with paralyzing anxiety?
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.
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.
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.
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.
There are so many things we want to control in our lives. None of us want to die, get sick, get rejected, get judged, get hurt. None of us want to be overwhelmed with feelings of hurt, harm, embarrassment or disgust. None of us want to second guess our actions, behaviors or future.
PSP: 253 Helping Kids with Anxiety Reframe Anxious Thoughts Anxious thoughts grow, build momentum and turn into an avalanche of overwhelm. But what if kids with anxiety were taught how to stop the mental chaos before it grew out of control? What if they were able to reframe their fears and calm their mind? When kids have anxiety, one of the most powerful tools at […]
Conscious Parenting with Sue DeCaro Parenting can seem overwhelming and exhausting. But when you look at it through the lens of conscious parenting, it can offer some hidden gems. Parenting can tell us so much about ourselves. It can offer us insights that we might not have gotten otherwise. Our kids can also be our teachers. They come with so many gifts if we allow […]
Helping Kids Who Feel too Overwhelmed to Work on OCD or Anxiety Sometimes anxiety or OCD feels SO big that any step to work on it can feel like too much. Sometimes our kids aren’t motivated to work on it because they are too overwhelmed. In this week’s Youtube video for kids and teens, I talk about how to get past the paralysis of overwhelm […]
Helping the Siblings of Kids with Anxiety or OCD Anxiety and OCD don’t just live within our child, it lives within our home. It impacts everyone in the family, including the siblings. What happens to the sibling when all eyes are focused on the child with anxiety or OCD? What happens to them when there are big meltdowns, panic attacks, and overwhelm. What happens when […]
How to Stop Panic Attacks from Ruling Your Child’s Life Sometimes we focus so much on how to stop panic attacks that we miss an even bigger problem, avoidance. What’s even more debilitating than panic attacks is the panic around having them. Panic attacks create a knee-jerk reaction of avoidance. They might avoid going to school, going out with friends, or going to the movies. […]
How to Lovingly Detach from Our Kids Anxiety or OCD Kids with anxiety or OCD need an anchor. They need us to be a rock that helps ground them through the chaos. Unfortunately, we cannot do that when we are so immersed in their struggles that we are drowning right along with them. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast, I talk about learning how […]
Letting Go of How Life Should Be We have expectations about how our children’s lives should be. We have expectations about how our family should be. This can be reinforced by friends, family or even the school system. So what happens when all those expectations fall short? What happens when we look at our reality and it doesn’t match up? Parenting is messy and we […]
