Guide a parent through OCD

Be understanding and try you’re best to understand your child even if it doesn’t make sense to you at first

Don't wait for them to outgrow it.

if you see the signs, get them help

Listen, and get them in therapy with qualified OCD therapists as soon as possible.

I wish my mom would have sent me to a therapist when I had my first anxiety or panic symptoms. Instead I suffered for nearly 20 years without any therapy.

Undertake a course to educate oneself about the condition or attend therapy with the child if this is possible

A realistic view of risk! My partner has a great model of 1-5 risk assessments where 5 is “this is going to actively physically kill me and is akin to a bear attack”. It’s been really helpful to have a metric of risk when my OCD says that confrontation will kill me and I can say “this is not a bear attack”

Regardless of your child’s age, become educated on OCD. It isn’t your child’s responsibility to educate you, take the time to listen to/ read the many many resources available.

Two words...patience and support. If you give your child grace and patience and support their healing journey it'll be the best for both you and your child

Lead by example as a parent and a mentor and show them that there’s always help with tough thoughts and that they they’re not alone in they way they think. Tell them that things we worry about may or may not happen, and it’s not our responsibility to figure out all the answers. Do square breathing regularly with your child and teach them about the mindfulness method of 5,4,3,2,1. (You focus on 5 things you see, 4 things you hear, 3 things you smell, 2 things you feel(ex. cloths in your legs, socks cradling your toes) 1 thing you taste). This has helped me immensely pull away from anxiety attacks before they take over. Anxiety makes my OCD worse so taking care of my anxiety is my most important job. This is true for so many people. Also, help your child spend more time outside in nature doing nature observations and less time in front of a screen. Teach them to listen to birds, look at the trees swaying in the wind, and to be curious about the natural world by looking under rocks for insects or in grooves of bark for interesting lichens. This has helped me and so many people I know. I hope this helps.

Your kid probably doesn’t fully understand what’s going on inside their head either. You feel stressed out by their OCD, but imagine how they feel. Their brain is constantly overworking itself. Be a constant for them, be a safe space where they don’t have to guess or assume. Tell them you are there for them and that it can be scary sometimes. Just be there for them and let them know it’s okay to not be ok.

OCD is not one of those “just snap out of it” type of things. So be patient, understanding but most importantly be open to sharing and learning from others. Together we are stronger!!!

it's hard but don't validate the compulsions and help them combat them with compassion. Get them help early! Don't hesitate to get them into ERP

Do ERP with your child (especially if they are younger). Sit with them and walk them through their ERP. Take deep breaths together. Talk to the scary feelings (anxiety) together (ex: “hi scary feeling. You feel like tightness in my chest/a hole in my stomach/bile in my throat like I want to throw up. Thanks for trying to keep me safe. I know I’m safe right now - even if I don’t believe it, the people around me are telling me I am so I’m going to trust them - and so you don’t have to do that job. Thank you though. I’m going to sit here with you, scary feeling, until you pass.” This might take a while, but if you don’t have to be out the door to school/work/an appointment, please take the time to stay with your child through their exposure until they call down. It’s profound how effective ERP is SO LONG AS YOU DO IT. Half-assing ERP, unfortunately, doesn’t really work. I can attest to the fact that ERP is super scary work. You face your fears several times a day, every day. Most people don’t have to do that. And what’s extra hard is nobody is going to make you do it - the person with OCD has to make the decision in the midst of their fear to stick with it. It’s a seemingly impossible task. That’s what we’re asking kids with OCD to do - face their fear each and every day. It’s hard enough to do as an adult, but to do it as a kid would be so much more difficult. Your child is going to need your help. Read up on OCD and ERP. Ask your child’s therapist (if they have one), for information and ways you can help them. And most of all, have compassion toward them. Good luck!

Have them go into therapy as soon as possible and learn how to properly cope with OCD as soon as possible so that they don’t develop negative traits that OCD can have developed overtime the sooner they get treatment and understand how the condition works. The better off the child will be. OCD in my experience in a lot of people‘s experience is a disorder that gets worse over time as it’s not treated and you make or develop bad compulsions and routines that are not healthy and are hard to treat as you try to treat the OCD yourself which do not work and you have to unlearn the compulsions later. Just have your child learn how to properly cope with OCD the first time that’s what I would’ve done with myself. Had I known that I had OCD instead of suffered for a long time by myself and developing a lot of unhealthy traits to treat OCD myself that did not work and just ended up being compulsions. For most of my life, I did not know I had OCD and did like self isolation and other very harmful compulsions to OCD.

Don't be afraid to give your child room to understand what they are going through. As much as you want to take their pain away. Let them understand that they are much stronger than they think.

If your child says that something doesn't seem right, please believe them.

Listen, love, and be patient. What your child is going through is something so misunderstood by society and so painfully difficult for an individual to experience. Be gentle, and become educated on how to be the best tool in their recovery toolkit. It’s difficult, it doesn’t happen quickly, but it’s possible to be the kind of parent to get your kid the help they need and maybe even help them with their ERP. It’s a wild journey. You got this 🤝🏼

Listen to professionals

I would say try and limit giving into compulsive needs (for example, kid asking to wash hands unnecessarily) when possible. Conversely, not using guilt to dissuade compulsive behavior, but rather explaining the truth/working with the kid when possible.

Remember that OCD can be more deeply rooted than just the current subject of the person’s obsession. Oftentimes, OCD stems from a core belief that the world is unsafe, or that the person themselves is bad/unsafe. Whatever the belief is, sometimes it has really helped me (as a person with OCD) to do deeper inner trauma work alongside exposure therapy—for example, I’ve had pretty severe harm OCD (having intrusive thoughts about being scared I would hurt my friends and feeling like a terrible person). After talking to my therapist, a closer look at my childhood showed that a lot of those intrusive thoughts stemmed from a deep feeling of shame that I had developed as a result of the abuse I had suffered. Exposure therapy is so important, and it really helps get the baseline level of anxiety down, and it definitely helps one regain self-acceptance and a sense of trust in oneself. But I think it’s important to, in some cases, encourage a deep examination of oneself to see if there are any inner wounds that the theme of the obsessions circulate around.

Support them. Learn to listen without immediately offering solutions. Be a safe space for them to share fears or progress. Keep what they tell you confidential from members of your family or friends, unless they tell you it’s ok to share. If you don’t understand something, ask them questions, or do research. And know that something that may seem small or insignificant to you, can be a huge matter for someone with OCD. Check in with them and ask how you can help.

Don't blame them for being ill and don't tell them to "Just pull yourself together!". You wouldn't treat them that way, if they suffered from asthma, or diabetes either. And listen to your child, if they tell you, that they feel uncomfortable with their therapist/psychiatrist. Mine told me, when I was a child, that I terrorize my family with my illness and that OCD will never go away anyway. Later, when I was a teenager, she said, that she thought, that I would develop an eating disorder, as it would suit me. That woman didn't help me, she made matters worse.

Get them into therapy ASAP. Dont hope that they can get past it on their own. From experience, it’s impossible to do through sheer willpower or extreme parental discipline. And remember that it’s not for you to “understand” it’s only your job to be active in helping them heal.

Educate yourself as thoroughly as you can, and then educate your child. Help them to know there is a reason for the way they think, feel or behave and that there is support available to them to alleviate those symptoms.

As a parent, I can’t imagine how difficult it is to watch your child suffer. Despite this, it is important, or at least was for me, that you encourage the child to help themselves. It was very important that my parents did not coddle but instead empowered me to be able face the challenges and do difficult things. Your child is not weak, they are incredibly strong and they need really know that. Be there from but always make sure they know that recovery is up to them and their incredible strength.

Remember that OCD will keep morphing to keep itself and fear alive. It’s not just about dealing with one obsession or theme, but the underlying disconnect between identifying controllable and uncontrollable/uncertain situations. This is also something that is modeled and learned behavior— if you respond to stress by trying to plan and control every possible outcome, they will learn that as well, and it will make the OCD harder to overcome

I would say get therapy for them as soon as possible if you can! Also, growing up I was so extremely cautious in everything. I was such a perfectionist and people always told me I was such a good child and an amazing daughter. I find now, on reflection, that a lot of what people thought was especially good… was really just me giving into a lot of religious OCD compulsions. I wish more parents, especially of children with OCD, would 1. Let their kids make mistakes 2. Encourage them to be courageous. Don’t force them, of course, but strongly encourage not being so cautious and doing things (especially) that they are really afraid to do. 3. Be empathetic. I think OCD can be so hard to understand from the outside, because people who don’t have OCD don’t always understand that it’s not always rational. It can be hard to be patient with someone who struggles with the same thing and and off for years in end, but just remembering that for them it’s real and very scary might help you to maintain empathy. 4. Stop reassuring them!! I think this is probably the hardest for parents… I’m a parent myself and I have OCD and I think this will be difficult for me in the future… it’s not helpful though. It only makes everything their afraid of worse. Your kids will come to you begging for reassurance with the same or similar questions over and over to try to ease their fears, h it it’s better to give them a direct but empathetic, “ I see you are really having a hard time with this… fear. I can’t answer this again, because it will only make it harder for you, but I love you so much and would be so happy to give you a hug or sit by you while you while we face your fear together.” 5. If your child is acting overly perfect… they probably are struggling… it’s not normal for kids to be perfect! So please, if you think that they seem like the perfect child, it might be time to take them to therapy : )

Make sure your kids are educated on their condition and have a good therapist that can teach them. Ocd can be degenerative without the right course of action

Love, compassion, knowledge, professional help. It’s a brutal illness, encourage them and stay with them all the way through the process.

Be curious~ ask questions about your child’s worries/fears. Where they came from. Be non-judgemental, and help them get the help they need instead of writing it off as a quirk or the child being a “worrier.”