AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & Anxiety

Many kids and even adults are scared of bugs. But for some of our kids it goes way beyond that. Perhaps they won’t go outside, won’t go to the park or won’t go swimming because of their fear of insects. Maybe they are worried about taking a shower or a bath or even going to the bathroom. What are you supposed to do to help your child move through such a debilitating fear of bugs? In this episode o...

Anxiety and OCD will often take a swing at our child’s self-esteem. It can do that with the anxious or intrusive thoughts it bombards them with. It can do that by paralyzing them with fear, as they watch their peers not struggle.  It can also be present alongside anxiety or OCD. It can help pick their anxiety or OCD themes. Social anxiety, perfectionism and Moral OCD all use self-esteem in th...

It’s hard enough to have anxiety or OCD, but what happens when your child is hit with grief or trauma? It can feel like a muddy, chaotic mess.  Unfortunately life happens and so do tragedies. Our kids are not immune to life happening to them, I wish they were.  Anxiety and OCD are opportunistic. It will feed off the grief and trauma by trying to grow new themes and new compulsions. Our f...

For those of you that aren’t aware, my husband died suddenly of a blood clot ten days after a minor Achilles surgery. The grief has been all consuming for me and my three children. I know my podcast, youtube channel, social media posts and emails have abruptly stopped almost a month ago and I didn’t have the energy to even explain why. I was touched by all the outpouring of love from around the wo...

There are common stories among parents raising kids with anxiety or OCD. Stories of struggling to find a well trained anxiety or OCD child therapist. Stories of feeling isolated and alone. Stories of friends, family or the school not fully getting the depths of their child’s struggles. These are stories that don’t have to continue. There is plenty of support out there. Support that can reach every...

When you get assessed by a mental health professional you assume that they would be well versed in all possible diagnoses. You assume they will identify, diagnose and treat any possible mental health struggle. Unfortunately that assumption is not only wrong, but dangerous. OCD seems to be the step-child of mental health education and training. Which is mind boggling considering, according to the I...

One of the biggest challenges parents face when raising a child with anxiety or OCD is...motivation. How do we motivate our kids to face their fears? How do we motivate our kids to sit in discomfort? How do we motivate them to even talk about their struggles. That can feel like an uphill battle. And yet, if you don’t have buy-in, it will be like trying to drive while someone has their foot firmly...

Your child is refusing to clean their room, go to bed or go to school. They are digging their heels in and it doesn’t look like they are going to budge. What are you supposed to do? Well if your child has anxiety or OCD, you might want to take an extra step and ask yourself, “Is this behavior caused by their anxiety or OCD?” Why does this matter? Does it mean you are going to give them a complete...

Social anxiety isn’t about not being able to make friends or keep friends. It is about the overwhelming feeling of judgment, criticism and rejection one feels.  In this week’s podcast I chat with my 9 year old about her struggles with social anxiety (it runs in the family), and what has helped her make huge progress crushing those struggles. *** This podcast is for informational purposes only...

Welcome to another episode of the Therapist Corner with two of my favorite therapists, Dr. Allison Solomon and Michelle Massi, LMFT. In this episode we answer questions submitted from AT Parenting Community members. We discuss a variety of issues including: -Anxiety/OCD therapy with multiple diagnoses  -Improving OCD skills among mental health professionals -Accommodating OCD -Confidentiality...

Anxiety and OCD is a family affair. The anxiety and OCD will hook you in, talk to you and get you to grow it. Learning how to identify how you are accommodating your child’s anxiety or OCD is key to their long-term success. I’m honored to have Dr. Eli Lebowitz on as a guest in this week’s episode of the AT Parenting Survival Podcast. He is a pioneer in anxiety and OCD treatment and the creator of...

As much as we want to protect our child from anything and everything, it is important that we teach them how to advocate for themselves. This is especially true when our kids have anxiety or OCD. They need to know how to articulate how they feel and what they need. This is true in both the school environment and even to some extent in the home environment. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podc...

So your child has just crushed their anxiety or OCD. You are feeling on top of the world and so are they. Now what? This is often when the ball is dropped. It is often when the seeds of the next infestation of weeds are left to grow, unchecked and unmanaged. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Maintaining progress is just as important, if not more important. It is developing those life long skills...

It’s hard to get our kids to use coping skills, but it’s even harder when they are teens who don’t like to be told what to do! In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast, I had the privilege of talking with Janine Halloran from Coping Skills for Kids. We discussed how to approach teens so they are more likely to use coping techniques! We also talk about her new book, Coping Skills for Teens. To...

Our kids are emotional sponges. They soak up our happiness, but they also soak up our fears. Often when trying to help our kids with anxiety we might project our own worries onto them. Sometimes we might spread our fear throughout the house. In this episode of the AT Parenting Survival Podcast I dive into three main topics. First, how do we keep our fears in check during this global pandemic and s...

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be used to replace the guidance of a qualified professional. Let me become your $5 mini-coach. Learn more here: https://www.patreon.com/Atparentingsurvival Visit my website at www. ATparentingSurvival.com Sign up for my weekly email newsletter: https://pages.convertkit.com/740ba8cd83/92109b7172 Take one of my online classes: To view th...

Many parents worry about telling their child they have anxiety or OCD. Some worry about potentially labeling their kids. Some worry that it will make their child feel different. Others worry about the stigma the child will face.   In this week’s AT Parenting Survival episode, I dive deep into the pros and cons of telling your child that they have anxiety or OCD. I also explore the pros and co...

Replay of podcast episode 159     This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be used to replace the guidance of a qualified professional.   Let me become your $5 mini-coach. Learn more here: https://www.patreon.com/Atparentingsurvival   Visit my website at www. ATparentingSurvival.com   Sign up for my weekly email newsletter: https://pages.convertkit.co...

Unfortunately many people believe, including some mental health professionals, that in order to have OCD you must have a core fear. Sadly, many people get misdiagnosed because people are searching up, down and all around for a fear. But OCD doesn’t have to be an intrusive thought, it can also be an intrusive feeling. Many people with OCD will have an overwhelming feeling of disgust or grossness. T...

Most of us had a fantasy of what parenting would look like. It might have involved Pinterest crafts, bake sales and play dates. It probably didn’t include hyperventilating, panic and avoidance. None of us signed up to parent a child with anxiety or OCD and most of us weren’t prepared to do it. It’s normal to have grief over what would have been. It’s normal to feel sad about the extra layer of str...

Not all therapy is the same. Not all therapists are the same. And when it comes to anxiety and OCD you really want to get it right the first time. But many parents don’t know what to look for and some don’t even realize warning bells should be going off. I invited some of my favorite Anxiety & Ocd therapists to come on to the AT Parenting Survival Podcast for our first ever Therapist Corner segmen...

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be used to replace the guidance of a qualified professional. Let me become your $5 mini-coach and participate in our future episodes, plus there are bonuses waiting for you inside. Learn more here: https://www.patreon.com/AtparentingsurvivalResources discussed in episode:Separation Anxiety resources: https://www.anxioustoddlers.com/?s=...

We want the best for our kids. We want our kids to blossom and live a happy fulfilling life. But when our kids start to struggle with anxiety or OCD we might think that rosy picture is gone forever. We might think we have to “cure” anxiety or OCD for them to be well again. But that’s the wrong way to look at it. We don’t need to “cure” them, because that’s actually an impossibility, we need t...

Most teens don’t want people to tell them what to do, especially their parents. So what are parents supposed to do when they desperately want to help their teen with OCD? Sometimes that can be tricky. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast, I invited Lisa Coyne, the co-author of the book, Stuff That’s Loud and the founder and senior clinical consultant of the McLean OCD Institute for Ch...

Jason Adam Katzenstein gets it. He gets the struggle of what it feels like to have OCD and he gets the fear that comes along with trying to crush it. Luckily for the OCD community, Jason is a popular and gifted cartoonist who decided to take his personal and vulnerable story and turn it into a graphic novel for the rest of the world to see. Through images and words, he is able to encapsulate...