Why Doing the Right Thing for Your Child’s OCD Can Feel So Wrong

SPEAKER_1 (0:03)

Welcome to the AT Parenting Survival Podcast, where you get help and guidance through the chaos of parenting a child with anxiety or OCD. This show is for educational purposes and is not intended to replace the guidance of a qualified professional.

Here's your host, child therapist, Natasha Daniels.

Natasha Daniels (0:22)

Well, hello there and welcome to another episode of the AT Parenting Survival Podcast. Today, we're going to be talking about something that happens more than it doesn't. When you're doing all the right things for your child's OCD, the part that you can control, and it can feel so wrong. Your child could have really rough reactions. They can get worse. And you might be thinking to yourself, I think they got it wrong. I don't think this is helping. And it's totally understandable that you would think that. And I'm going to unpack why that is and why they're not wrong for you doing the right thing.

That just sounded very confusing. But you know what I mean. Okay. Before we jump into today's episode, I do want to thank NOCD for sponsoring this episode. NOCD offers affordable, effective, convenient therapy, and they're available in the US and outside the US. You can schedule your free 15-minute consultation to see if NOCD is a right fit for you and your child. Just go to treatmyocd.com. That is treatmyocd.com. I'll leave a link in the show notes as well. I do have a handout for this episode. So if you like to take notes or you like kind of a visual of what I'm discussing, you can find that at natashadannials.com/handouts.

That's natashadannials.com/handouts.

You will need to know the episode number. This is episode 491 All right, let's get into it. So I want to start with saying that research has consistently shown that family accommodations for OCD. So that's not accommodations for your child's issues in general.

I like the word enabling better because we do accommodate neurodivergency. We do accommodate at school. My child has a 504 plan. Those are accommodations. So that word in and of itself is not a bad word. But in the OCD world, it's not a good word. And so think of it more like enabling or participating in the OCD.

That's what we're talking about today.

When you do that, research consistently shows that that grows the acuity of OCD over time, which means that us as a family have a part to play in whether OCD gets better or worse.

Now, the good news is we could do something. Even if our child is not motivated or able to work on OCD, we can do something.

The bad news is we're part of the problem. We're part of the solution, however you want to look at it.

It's hard because OCD will hijack the family.

It will not only tell your child, and when I say child, I mean any age, adult, child, whatever, parents or parents, but it will tell your child to do things, to get brief relief, and it will start bossing you around as well. Maybe your child has to wash, and then it's telling other people they have to wash, or maybe your child has to avoid certain spots or people or items in the house. And now everybody's having to avoid certain spots or follow OCD's rules or maybe OCD needs reassurance, compulsive reassurance or needs to confess to you, needs you to witness that. It will be vastly different for each one of you depending on the OCD theme, but the structure and the framework is very similar. It's all the same. It all is the foundationally same beast of OCD with just different flavors on top of it. And so it is very rare for me to meet a family that isn't participating with OCD on some level. And most of the families that I work with are entrenched with OCD before they realize what is happening.

That's not their fault and it's not your fault. It's very counterintuitive. If my child's in distress as a parent, I want to reduce their distress and I'll do whatever I can to give them some relief. And unfortunately, with OCD, that grows the OCD and that's very counterintuitive. Because who would think that helping your child reduce their distress is going to make a disorder worse? And that's why OCD is very complicated. And that is why I say you need to see an OCD specialist and not just any therapist. Because what you would say to people who are dealing with anxiety or other mental health issues isn't really what you would advise for OCD. It's a beast of its own. So a lot of times, parents start to hear this. Or if you've been listening to my podcast for a long time, you've started to hear this. Or if you're in my AT Parenting Community, you have heard this a lot.