Shows
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 416: Groundbreaking Study on Virtual ERP for Kids with OCD – with Dr. Sara Conley from NOCDIn this episode of the AT Parenting Survival Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Sara Conley, a licensed clinical psychologist and clinical manager at NOCD, to discuss a groundbreaking new study on virtual Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) therapy for children and teens with OCD.We explore the study’s powerful findings—including a 37.3% median reduction in OCD symptoms in just 13 sessions—and how virtual ERP therapy is changing the landscape of OCD treatment for families. Dr. Conley shares how NOCD’s model brings accessible, evidence-based therapy directly into families’ homes, and why parent involvement is a key pi...2025-04-2931 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 415: When OCD Looks Like Oppositional Behavior: Understanding Hidden CompulsionsIf your child refuses to shower, melts down over clothing, or avoids homework, you might assume they’re being defiant. But what if it’s actually OCD driving their behavior? In this episode of the AT Parenting Survival Podcast for Anxiety and OCD, I break down how OCD-driven avoidance and compulsions can look like oppositional behavior—and why this misunderstanding is so common.You’ll learn:🟤 How OCD can mimic defiance in kids.🟤 Key signs that reveal it’s OCD, not oppositional behavior.🟤 Why traditional discipline backfires with OCD.🟤 Practical str...2025-04-2237 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 414: How to Handle OCD Meltdowns Without Making Them WorseIf your child has OCD, you’ve likely witnessed an OCD-driven meltdown—intense distress triggered by an intrusive thought, fear, or the inability to complete a compulsion. These meltdowns can be overwhelming for both you and your child. And while it’s natural to want to soothe their anxiety in the moment, some responses can unintentionally reinforce OCD.In this AT Parenting Survival Podcast episode, we’ll cover:-What’s happening in your child’s brain during a meltdown-What not to do (even if it feels helpful)-Effective strategies to de-escalate...2025-04-1535 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 412: Improving Our Child’s Life with OCD with Dr. Jonathan AbramowitzHow do we help our children with OCD have a better quality of life? Our child’s OCD is more than just Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) therapy. It is more than just their intrusive thoughts and their compulsions.How do we help them with self-esteem? The feeling of guilt and shame? The struggles of navigating school and family relationships? In Dr. Jonathan Abramowitz’s new book, Living Well with OCD, he tackles the bigger question - how can people live a fulfilling life with OCD?Jonathan Abramowitz is a psychologist with a private pract...2025-04-0147 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 409: When You See Anxiety or OCD in Others KidsAs you become more educated about anxiety and OCD, you most likely will start seeing it all around you. It can be hard to stomach seeing a child struggling with anxiety or OCD, especially if their parents aren’t aware of what they are truly dealing with.So what do you do in those situations? I actually get asked that question more often than you might think! In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I’ll explore the delicate balance of seeing anxiety or OCD in a child and how, and if, to educate the par...2025-03-1134 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 408: How to Use Mel Robbins’ Let Them Theory with Kids with Anxiety or OCDI quickly fell in love with Mel Robbins’ book The Let Them Theory. It is such a simple, and yet powerful approach to living your life. Throughout the book I thought about how the Let Them Theory could be adapted to parents, and in particular, those of us raising kids with anxiety or OCD.I started to implement this approach with my kids in a child friendly way. It made a huge impact on how I showed up for their anxiety and OCD struggles. It also helped me let go of what I cannot control. In...2025-03-0443 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 407: Helping Kids with OCD and Magical ThinkingOCD can convince our kids that they have control over the uncontrollable. That is at the heart of magical thinking OCD compulsions. Magical thinking is when OCD convinces a person that if they do or don’t do something - they can prevent something from happening. That something could be literally anything related to their theme. They might be preventing themselves from throwing up. They might be saving your life. They might be preventing a health issue. It is different for each person, but the compulsion is the same - do this (or don’t do this) or EL...2025-02-2534 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 406: How to Handle Tourettic OCD with Dr. John PiacentiniNot every OCD theme is about a fear, sometimes it is about a feeling. That is the case with Tourettic OCD. Tourettic OCD is not triggered by an intrusive thought, but rather a somatic urge. Compulsions can include sudden, repetitive movements or vocalizations.It can be tricky to figure out what is a tic and what is tourettic OCD. That is why I invited Dr. John Piacentini to the show. Dr. John Piacentini is a Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the UCLA School of Medicine and Director of the Child OCD, Anxiety, and Tic Disorders Pr...2025-02-1840 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 403: Parents at Odds: How Disagreements Impact Progress with Anxiety and OCDWhen parents disagree on how to approach their child’s anxiety or OCD, they do more than irritate each other, it impacts their child’s progress with anxiety or OCD.In this week’s episode of the AT Parenting Survival Podcast I dive into the top 5 topics parents often disagree on when it comes to their child’s OCD or anxiety. We’ll also dive into why these are such common topics for disagreement as well as ways parents can mitigate the impact it has on their child’s anxiety or OCD.🌸 Learn how to be an effective...2025-01-2850 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP: 399: Why the Core Fear Matters in Anxiety and OCDDoes it really matter if you understand the core fear related to your child’s anxiety or OCD. The short answer - yes. Of course we will treat anxiety with anxiety tools regardless of theme or core fear. And we will treat OCD as OCD regardless of theme or core fear. But understanding the core fear in anxiety or OCD is like the difference between using a compass to get where you are going versus a GPS. Core fears help us identify and pinpoint exactly what fuels all the anxiety and OCD themes; what fuels all...2024-12-3144 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP: 398: Handling Your Child’s Anxiety, OCD and Christmas BreakJust because it is the holiday season doesn’t mean our child’s anxiety and OCD take a break. The holidays can stir up a variety of issues for our kids depending on their particular anxiety and OCD themes. Down time can cause more anxious or intrusive thoughts. The whirlwind of parties, overstimulation and no routine can make emotions run high. It can be tricky to deal with contamination, restrictive eating, panic attacks and upsetting thoughts around relatives and friends. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I’m exploring some common struggles kids with anxie...2024-12-2439 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP: 397: Feelings of Failure When Our Child’s Anxiety or OCD Doesn’t Get betterAs parents we can be hard on ourselves. The parenting journey raising kids with anxiety and OCD can come with many ups and downs. Many of us blame ourselves when our child’s anxiety or OCD doesn’t get better.But the truth is you can do absolutely everything to help your child with anxiety or OCD and they still don’t improve.We are only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to our child’s anxiety or OCD.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore the narrative that we of...2024-12-1733 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP: 393: Helping Autistic Kids Who have OCD with Jan StewartIt can be hard enough to help a child with OCD, but what if they are autistic as well? It can be confusing to figure out where autistic traits end and OCD compulsions begin. It can also be a struggle to navigate two worlds that don’t always intersect.That is why I was thrilled to invite Jan Stewart to the AT Parenting Survival Podcast. Jan is a highly regarded mental health and neurodiversity advocate and mom to two, now grown children with multiple diagnoses. She is the author of Hold on Tight: A Parent’s Jou...2024-11-1959 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP: 392: What Stories are You Telling Yourself About Your Child’s Anxiety or OCD?We may not have full control over our child’s recovery around anxiety or OCD, but we can control how we show up to their struggles. This can be tricky when our mind is bogged down with what-if scenarios. That is why it is so important to pay attention to the narratives we are spinning around our child’s anxiety or OCD and tap into what emotions are showing up for us, as we show up for them.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore the stories that so many of us r...2024-11-1253 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 386: The Difference Between PDA Accommodations and OCD AccommodationsOften parents who are raising kids with both PDA and OCD get conflicting advice. This can push a parent who is already stressed, over the edge. Are accommodations good or are they bad? One set of advice talks about leaning into accommodations, while the other set says accommodations are something to eventually stop. The reality is PDA accommodations and OCD accommodations aren’t the same. OCD accommodations are specifically talking about participating in a child’s OCD compulsions. Those are called accommodations. When we participate in our child’s OCD compulsions we are inadverte...2024-10-0131 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 385: Helping Kids with OCD with Stuart Ralph from OCD StoriesI had the pleasure of sitting down with Stuart Ralph, from the podcast The OCD Stories to talk about his journey from OCD sufferer, OCD podcaster to therapist.We explore how treating kids and teens with OCD requires a different, more flexible approach. Stuart also offers some helpful tips on how to navigate the UK mental health system.Stuart Ralph’s practice, Integrative Centre for OCD offers therapy to kids, teens and young adults regardless of where in the world they are located. To learn more go to his practice website here.Resources:...2024-09-2459 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 384: Why Family Involvement is Key to OCD Treatment in KidsOCD doesn’t live in a bubble; it lives in our home. It lives in our families. It is not an isolated disorder. It involves the whole family system.That is why family involvement is key to a child’s OCD long term success. Often this is the missing component, even when a child is being treated for OCD.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore how OCD involves the family and what parents can do to leverage their support.🌸 Want more in-depth support? Check out my online courses at www.atpar...2024-09-1740 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 382: A Helpful Tool for OCD Reassurance SeekingOCD doesn’t just involve our kids, it involves us. OCD reassurance seeking is a sneaky compulsion. It gets us to do OCD’s dirty work. We often don’t even know we are talking to OCD.It can feel bad to pull back our reassurance, even if we know it is OCD. It can also be tough on our kids. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I talk about a tool I created to help kids reduce their OCD reassurance seeking.Youtube video for kids on how reassurance can be a compul...2024-09-0346 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 379: Are you Missing Some of Your Child’s Anxiety or OCD Struggles?If we are openly discussing our child’s anxiety or OCD with them, we might assume that we aren’t missing anything. But it is important to note that just because we see the tip of the iceberg, doesn’t mean we see everything.I am constantly missing, and then discovering, yet another thing that is actually my child’s anxiety or OCD in disguise. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast, I explore why kids will continue to hide anxiety and OCD struggles and some concrete tips on how to address this.2024-08-1351 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 377: How ADHD Complicates Anxiety and OCDAnxiety and OCD are hard enough to deal with, but when you sprinkle ADHD into the mix everything can be magnified. As parents raising kids with comorbid conditions, this adds another layer of struggle. You might find things that work for other kids with anxiety or OCD doesn’t work as easily for your child. It can require a different way to approach anxiety or OCD.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore five areas where ADHD complicates anxiety and OCD progress. I’ll break down ways you can tweak your approaches to address the ex...2024-07-301h 03AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 373: Should my Teen with OCD Watch Turtles All the Way Down?John Green’s new movie Turtles All the Way Down goes a long way in helping the OCD community educate the world about OCD. But should your child or teen with OCD see the movie?Well, I have mixed thoughts on that.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I dive into the pros and cons of the movie Turtles All the Way Down and which kids would benefit from watching it.🌸 Sign up for my FREE series, Self-Care for Parents Raising Kids with Anxiety or OCD.***This...2024-07-0241 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 372: When Kids Reject the OCD DiagnosisIt can take so much energy to find a qualified OCD specialist to finally assess and diagnose your child with OCD. But what are you to do when your child rejects the OCD diagnosis? In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I talk about some common reasons why a child might reject an OCD diagnosis and where to go from there.🌸 Get in-depth support to help your child with OCD in my online courses at AT Parenting Survival School.***This podcast episode is sponsored by NOCD. NOCD p...2024-06-2548 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 371: Boosting Self-Esteem During Anxiety and OCD StrugglesAnxiety and OCD can rob our kids of so many things, including their self-esteem and self-worth. It is easy for them to feel hard on themselves when their anxiety or OCD is knocking them down. Often kids are extra hard on themselves during these times.As parents we are intensely focused on helping our kids navigate anxiety or OCD, but there are some things we can do to boost their self-esteem as well. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I’ll explore some simple ways you can help your child’s self-esteem and self-wo...2024-06-1839 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 367: If Your Child’s Anxiety or OCD Returns are You Starting Over?There is nothing worse than seeing the first signs of anxiety or OCD return. It is a stomach dropping kind of feeling. It can bring all those old emotions flooding to the surface. But the good news is the return of anxiety or OCD doesn’t mean your child is starting from scratch.All those past skills are still there under the surface.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore what happens when our child’s anxiety or OCD returns and how to navigate it.🌸 Help your child build thei...2024-05-2138 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 364: How Our Parenting Styles Impact the Anxiety & OCD JourneyOur parenting style directly impacts how we approach our child’s anxiety or OCD. How do you feel about setting boundaries? What emotions do you feel when your child is in distress? How do you feel when you pull back your accommodations around anxiety or OCD?Our parenting style plays a role in these questions. Your parenting style wasn’t developed out of thin air. We are a mix of our childhood experiences, our feelings around how we were parented and our hopes for our own kids.In this week’s AT Pa...2024-04-3040 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 363: The Importance of Finding the Right Therapy for OCD | One Family’s JourneyThe wrong therapist can wreak havoc on a children’s OCD. That is why it is so important for parents to understand what are evidenced-based approaches specifically for OCD. It is also key to have the skills to decipher a qualified therapist from a non-qualified therapist. When Eve started having intrusive thoughts, she privately went to google to figure out what was going on. Fortunately for Eve she stumbled upon the right sites that helped her understand her thoughts were OCD. Many families aren’t so lucky, especially when it involves OCD themes like sexual orientation or harm...2024-04-2356 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 362: The Use of Storytelling in Anxiety and OCDIt can be hard to help kids navigate anxiety and OCD. Sometimes adding some creative ways to help validate, normalize and build skills to handle anxiety or OCD can be gold! One of my favorite ways to do that is through storytelling.Storytelling is a powerful tool. It can help kids understand how anxiety and OCD work. It can help talk about anxiety or OCD without discussing it directly. It can be a creative outlet to process emotions around anxiety and OCD. It can even be used to problem solve and teach tools on how to crush...2024-04-1648 min
Around and Around - The OCD CircleUNDERSTANDING OCD FROM A PARTNERS PERSPECTIVE: EMOTIONAL WELLBEING THROUGHOUT THE JOURNEY. MY CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL AND TRACI PERKINS – PART ONE
UNDERSTANDING OCD FROM A
PARTNERS PERSPECTIVE: EMOTIONAL WELLBEING THROUGHOUT THE JOURNEY. MY
CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL AND TRACI PERKINS – PART ONE
Today I have for you part one of my conversation with Michael and Traci Perkins, to discuss how one partner having
obsessive compulsive disorder can affect relationships.
As you may remember, Traci and I talked in a previous episode about her ocd and her experience on the reality show “the ocd project.” I encourage you to go back and listen to that
conversation if you haven’t already.
People in relationships with ind...2024-03-1129 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 354: A New Way to Help Your Child with OCD at HomeAs parents we are often desperate to provide our children with tools to help their OCD. We might scour the internet trying to find an OCD specialist; not an easy feat. Or if we are lucky enough to have found an OCD specialist, we might want to know what we can do at home to fill in the gaps.I often get asked, what does that look like? How can I help my child build their OCD skills at home to make sure we are getting ahead of this beast?When kids learn and practice...2024-02-2043 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 345: Balancing Act of Pulling Back Anxiety & OCD AccommodationsWhen our child has anxiety or OCD, we are often providing some accommodations that inadvertently grow the problem. As we learn about anxiety and OCD, we also learn about the importance of pulling back those accommodations. This is not a black and white process. It takes time, it takes judgment and it takes discernment in the moment.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I talk about accommodations, how they grow anxiety and OCD and how to systematically pull back accommodations over time, while having discernment for what your child can handle.Want mo...2023-12-1935 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 342: A Sisters Journey Through OCD to a Life of PurposeEmily and Lindsay both struggled with OCD as kids. Even though they were sisters, OCD showed up in very different ways for each of them. It wasn’t until Emily was in college that she realized that her anxiety was really OCD in disguise. Lindsay was able to support her sister and get her connected to the help she needed. When the sisters found themselves back at home during COVID, a desire to help themselves quickly turned into an idea to help others as well. Emily wanted something to anchor herself. She wanted a br...2023-11-2846 min
Around and Around - The OCD CircleTHE REALITY OF OCD: TRACI PERKINS’ JOURNEY – FROM THE OCD PROJECT - PART TWOTHE REALITY OF OCD: TRACI PERKINS’ JOURNEY – FROM THE OCD PROJECT - PART TWO
This morning’s episode is part two of my conversation with
Traci Perkins, who was a patient on the reality show “The OCD Project.” Theu
OCD Project took place in 2010 and is available for viewing on YouTube. I
encourage you to watch it in order to get to know Traci better. And also, if
you have any questions for Traci, please contact me on one of my social media
accounts, which are listed in the show notes below. Traci will be glad to...2023-11-2728 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 341: Helping Kids with Disgust OCD themesThere are a few OCD themes that can look very different than the rest. Just right OCD and Disgust OCD themes are two of them.Parents and therapists might struggle to find the “core fear” around these themes. That is because disgust and just right themes have to do with a fear of overwhelm around a feeling.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I talk about how disgust OCD themes can show up and some alternative views being shared about how to treat disgust OCD differently than other themes....2023-11-2138 min
Around and Around - The OCD CircleTHE REALITY OF OCD: TRACI PERKINS’ JOURNEY – FROM THE OCD PROJECT - PART ONE
THE REALITY OF OCD:
TRACI PERKINS’ JOURNEY – FROM THE OCD PROJECT - PART ONE
I’m really excited about this morning’s show. It’s part 1
of my conversation with Traci Perkins, a patient on the reality show, “The OCD
Project.”
"The OCD
Project" was a reality television series that aired on VH1 in 2010. The
show followed the experiences of individuals with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
(OCD) as they underwent intensive therapy and treatment at a residential
treatment facility. Dr. David Tolin, a psychologist and expert in OCD, led the
therapy sessions and worked with the parti...2023-11-2028 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 339: Understanding the Relationship of PANDAS/PANS and OCDNo one knows for certain what causes OCD. We know what areas of the brain are implicated in OCD, but the rest seems up for discussion. We need more research to understand this disorder.Some kids have OCD symptoms due to an umbrella of issues under PANDAS/PANS. Research is showing that inflammation in the brain can impact mental health and cause neuropsychiatric symptoms, including OCD. Many kids have autoimmune issues, infections such as strep or have had environmental exposure to things like mold or Lyme that can cause an inflammatory response. In t...2023-11-071h 05AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 337: Ben Ellis’ Journey with OCDBen was always an anxious child, but behind that anxiety lurked something else. It took a stay in a treatment center for eating disorders and eight therapists to finally get the help he truly needed, with the diagnosis he actually had - OCD.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast, Ben walks us through his journey with OCD, from his inability to share his intrusive thoughts, to his unrelenting search to find an effective therapist trained in OCD.Ben is determined to be a part of the effort to re...2023-10-2444 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 335: Creating Natural Exposures to Crush Anxiety and OCDUltimately 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...2023-10-1044 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 333: Should You Tell the School About Your Child’s Anxiety or OCD?Parents often ask me if they should tell the school about their child’s anxiety or OCD. The answer isn’t a simple yes or no. There are things to consider. Like does their anxiety or OCD impact their academic performance or ability to function at school? Is there a chance that they will be mislabeled or misunderstood due to their anxiety or OCD?In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore the areas to consider when weighing the pros and cons of telling the school about your child’s anxiety or OCD.🌸...2023-09-2640 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 332: Understanding Relationship OCD in Kids and Teens with Kristina OrlovaIt is helpful to understand the many different disguises OCD can wear. When we understand how OCD can show up, we can nip it in the bud more often. Relationship OCD is often talked about in an adult context, but it impacts kids and teens as well.I invited Kristina Orlova, an anxiety and OCD therapist and creator of OCD Academy, to come onto the AT Parenting Survival Podcast to help us understand ROCD better.To learn more about Kristina Orlova’s OCD Academy click here. Also, check out her po...2023-09-1945 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 330: Tips to Travel Internationally With Kids with Anxiety or OCDWhen your child is struggling with anxiety or OCD it can feel overwhelming to travel internationally. How will their anxiety handle all the change? Will their OCD be triggered? Helping our child with anxiety or OCD is a marathon not a sprint, and life should still be lived and enjoyed. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I discuss my tips, tricks and hacks to traveling internationally with kids who have anxiety or OCD.Click here to listen:🌸 To get in-depth support helping your ch...2023-09-0538 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 329: What to Do When Your Child with OCD or Anxiety Won’t Discuss itOften parents give up before they even start because their child with OCD or anxiety refuses to talk. It is easy to think there is nothing you can do if you can’t get your child to discuss their anxiety or OCD.But there is always a place to start, always. Kids refuse to talk about anxiety or OCD for various issues. Here are some common ones:-They have a hard time expressing their emotions in general-They are embarrassed about having anxiety or OCD-They thi...2023-08-2942 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 326: OCD and Eating DisordersOCD and Eating Disorders are often comorbid conditions, but beyond that, OCD can cause disordered eating. Many OCD issues including Emetophobia, Moral OCD, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Orthorexia, PANDAS/PANS and ARFID can impact our kids ability to eat.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore the various OCD issues that can overlap Eating Disorders and some that can be incorrectly diagnosed and treated as only an Eating Disorder.Click here to watch my short Youtube video on Orthorexia.🌸 Click here to join my FREE series running August 3-11 c...2023-08-0839 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 325: OCD Recovery and Maintenance with Shaun FloresShaun Flores was only a couple of years into his own struggle with OCD when he became an OCD advocate. He quickly became a stronger messenger of hope through his OCD awareness work. Recently I had Shaun back on the AT Parenting Survival podcast to discuss how his OCD recovery is going, what he does to maintain progress and how the perception of recovery can be part of a bigger issue. As Shaun discussed his recovery it became apparent how OCD decimated his financial stability, derailed his career path and left him in de...2023-08-0154 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 319: How to Remove Stigma in Kids with OCDWhen kids feel stigma attached to their OCD they are less likely to want to discuss it or receive treatment. One of the first steps we can do to help kids with OCD is to help remove the stigma society has placed on this disorder.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I talk about the importance of removing stigma around OCD and concrete ways to do that.Resources:Crushing OCD Course for Kids and TeensChild Mind Institute’s You Got This campaignUnstuck: An O...2023-06-2044 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 315: Turning OCD Pain into Passion | Shaun FloresShaun Flores had been suffering from OCD for years without knowing it. He hopped from OCD theme to OCD theme, listening to OCD’s lies and searching for certainty with each new worry. It wasn’t until 2022, when he finally met the right therapist, that he learned that all of his fears had one explanation, OCD.Shaun has turned his OCD pain into a passion to advocate. Since his diagnosis he has added a new face to the OCD advocacy scene. A face that was desperately underrepresented. As a black man, he is helpi...2023-05-2343 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 310: My Top 5 Podcasts & Youtube Videos for When Your Child is Just Diagnosed with OCD.I am often asked by parents just starting out on this journey, “Where do I start?” I have so many podcasts and Youtube videos on OCD it can be a bit overwhelming.That is why when a member of my community suggested I do my top 5 podcasts and youtube videos for those newly starting this journey, I jumped on the idea!Here are the top 5 podcast episodes I would listen to if you are new to helping your child or teen with OCD.Top 5 Podcast Episodes for OCD:Si...2023-04-1837 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 307: Moving from OCD Treatment to Living with OCDDealing with OCD isn’t like dealing with a cold. It isn’t cured and then we move on. It can help to shift our perspective to focus on how to live and, more importantly, thrive with OCD. In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I talk about how to shift our kids from a victim to an empowerment mentality (and us as well)! We also dive into how to create a lifestyle that acknowledges and works on OCD organically within the home environment.To learn about the OCD Workshop series click here.2023-03-2835 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 304: Teaching Our Kids Not to Engage with OCDOCD wants us to take its threats seriously. It wants us to debate with it, argue, and come up with solutions to circumvent the issues it presents. Afraid of germs - let’s think of ways you can avoid it.Afraid you’ll turn into something you aren’t - let’s remind yourself that you are a good person.Afraid you forgot something - let’s develop ways you can remember.All of these solutions are created based on the validity of what OCD is saying. When we lea...2023-03-0735 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 300: Reducing Chaos Anxiety or OCD Bring to the FamilySign up for the FREE series: Self-Care for Parents Raising Kids with Anxiety or OCD here.Supplemental podcasts related to this topic:Partner related issues:What to Do When Your Partner Triggers Your Child’s Anxiety or OCDHow to Deal with a Partner Who Doesn’t Believe in Anxiety DisordersThe Impact of Child Anxiety or OCD on MarriagesSibling related issues:Raising Multiple Kids with Anxiety or OCDHelping the Siblings of a Child with Anxiety or OCD2023-02-0759 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 299: The Relationship with Sleep and Anxiety & OCDMany kids with anxiety and OCD struggle with sleep. This sleep struggle can be caused by a variety of issues that are different for each child.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore the most common ways anxiety and OCD impacts sleep and how a lack of sleep impacts anxiety and OCD. I also talk about the approaches that won’t work and what will work instead.For more in-depth support helping your child with sleep enroll in my course, How to Help Kids Who Struggle to Sleep.Si...2023-01-3137 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 298: When Anxiety and OCD Themes Impact the Ability to Get HelpThere 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 that happens.Sign up for the FREE series: Self-Care for Parents Raising Kids with Anxiety or OCD...2023-01-2439 min
Purely OCDReal OCDToday on the purely ocd podcast, in honor of ocd awareness week, Kelley Franke, LMFT, and Lauren Rosen, LMFT, discuss their own journeys with OCD. But first- they discuss the first national campaign promoting OCD Awareness, directed by Ethan Smith and featuring a whole slew of advocates including Rev. Katie O'Dunne, Sean Shinnock Tia Wilson Uma Chatterjee and Kelley Franke herself. As a part of the awareness campaign, Biohaven also asked a number of advocates to share their stories. You can find both Kelley and Lauren’s on biohaven’s website: https://ocdtrials.com/what-if/.
In the episode, K...2023-01-1034 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 278: Helping Kids with OCD Know They are Not AloneHaving OCD can be a lonely experience. Kids can feel like there is no one else out there who gets their struggles. And really, who can blame them? The media (and even worse social media) often spend their time talking about OCD like it’s a meme or an adjective.But feeling alone does more than impact the mood and self-esteem. It can stand in the way of progress and impact our child’s long term success.In this week’s episode of the AT Parenting Survival Podcast...2022-09-0634 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 276: How to Spot if You are Talking to OCD vs Your ChildOCD is sneaky! It hides in the questions our children ask. It disguises itself with curiosity, constant checking or over apologetic responses. OCD is a family affair and it often gets us as parents to inadvertently grow it on a daily basis.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explore the many ways OCD blindly hooks us in. I talk about what to look for and how to respond instead.P.S: I’m cooking up an OCD online, on-demand class just for kids and teens to teach them...2022-08-2356 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP: 272 Dealing with Disappointment when Anxiety or OCD Comes BackIt can feel so good when anxiety and OCD pack their bags and give you your child back. Heck, give you your home back. So it can be more than jarring, when that unwanted guest shows back up at your front door.It is normal to feel disappointment, hopelessness and fear. What if things get really bad again?What if all our progress goes out the window?What if this is a life sentence?Those are understandable feelings after riding past storms. But an...2022-07-2637 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP: 271 Fighting OCD is Often Not What Kids ThinkYou’ll often hear the word “fight your OCD.” In fact, one of my favorite books about OCD is called Talking Back to OCD, by John March. But sometimes kids misunderstand what this means (and parents too). When we talk about fighting OCD we are usually talking about a counterintuitive way to push back. A way to approach OCD that may not seem like traditional “fighting” at all.In this week’s podcast I talk about the counterintuitive way to “fight” OCD and why we need to clarify this with our kids.I’m cooking up an OC...2022-07-1925 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP: 270 Getting Kids to Own Their Journey with Anxiety or OCDMany of us learn how to help our kids with anxiety or OCD, but are we doing enough to help them help themselves? Helping our kids own their journey is key to their long term success.It is similar to that old proverb: If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.If we are the ones telling our kids what to do and how to do it, will they know how to do it for...2022-07-121h 03AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP: 264 Parenting a Child When You Have Anxiety or OCD as WellIt’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. You can often empathize with your child more than others can. You know how it feels to have struggles and can relate to them in a way others may not. You might catch things earlie...2022-05-3152 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP: 262 The Wait-and-See Approach to Anxiety or OCDHow often do we hear from family, friends and even doctors that we should “wait and see” if it gets worse. We should wait and see if the anxiety or OCD grows bigger. We should wait and see if anxiety or OCD becomes debilitating. We should wait and see if it is truly an issue.It is like watching a tornado slowly approach your home and waiting to see if you really need to go seek shelter.When we proactively help our kids with any anxiety or OCD issue we help them long term...2022-05-1742 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 229: Can my Child Catch Other Anxiety or OCD Themes?Parents will often ask me, “Can my child catch other anxiety or OCD themes?” What if they read a book on OCD or anxiety and it makes it worse? What if they watch a documentary or participate in a support group with tons of other themes discussed? Won’t their anxiety or OCD just get more ideas?In this episode of the AT Parenting Survival Podcast, I go into if and how anxiety and OCD themes can be “caught” and if that is something parents should even worry about.***This podcast ep...2021-09-2842 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 228: Teaching Our Kids with OCD and Anxiety Self-Compassion with Kimberley QuinlanAnxiety and OCD can bring with it distress, fear and discomfort. But it can also bring self-loathing, shame, guilt and negative self-talk. When our kids are hard on themselves, their issues can compound, making it difficult for them to use their tools to address anxiety or OCD. In this episode of the AT Parenting Survival Podcast, I invited Kimberley Quinlan on to talk about how self-compassion plays a large role in the journey of anxiety and OCD. She talks about why it can be difficult to have self-compassion and the ways in which we...2021-09-2143 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 227: Why We Can’t Make Our Child’s Anxiety or OCD Go AwayNone of us like to see our kids suffer. That’s why it’s so hard to see our kids struggle with anxiety or OCD. It can consume their life and ours and that’s heartbreaking. But no matter how badly we would like to take their anxiety or OCD away from them, we just don’t have the power to do so.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast, I talk about how we often try to make our children’s anxiety or OCD go away, and why it doesn’t work - and some...2021-09-1456 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 226: Helping Kids with Sports Anxiety & OCDAnxiety and OCD love to glom onto everything our children love, including sports. It can make your child anxious, sick and panicky before a game, meet or competition. OCD can go one step further and create compulsions around the sport.I invited Cali Werner, Anxiety and OCD Clinician, athlete and author of Anxious Annie, to come on to the AT Parenting Survival Podcast and talk to us about how to handle sports related anxiety and OCD struggles.You can find Cali’s book Anxious Annie here.***This po...2021-09-0746 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 224: How to Handle When You and Your Child Both have Anxiety or OCDAnxiety and OCD are both highly genetic, so it’s not surprising that many parents find themselves raising kids with similar issues. Often though, many of us back burner our own help to focus on our children’s needs.But what if focusing on your needs also helps your child’s struggles?In this episode of the AT Parenting Survival Podcast I talk to Nathan Peterson, an anxiety and OCD therapist, a YouTuber and a course creator. We talk about how our children’s issues can overlap with our own, and what...2021-08-2446 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 220: How to Use a Strength Based Approach for Anxiety & OCDCan we build self-esteem and self-determination, while helping our kids with anxiety or OCD? Yes! In fact, it is crucial to learn how to do that within the context of our child’s anxiety OCD.In this episode of the AT Parenting Survival Podcast I talk about how to take a strength based approach towards anxiety and OCD. I will talk about what parental approaches will build on your child’s strengths and foster them to tackle their issues.Resources discussed during the podcast:Youtube video on Superpowers of AnxietyYo...2021-07-2735 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 219: How to Help a Child with Both Autism and OCDMany parents who are raising children with both Autism and OCD find themselves in a no man’s land of sorts. Professionals treating Autism don’t always understand OCD and those treating OCD don’t always understand Autism. Ugh. What a struggle.That is why talking to Dr. Rebecca Sachs is like talking to a rare unicorn. Her practice, CBT Spectrum specializes in both and her knowledge runs deep! I invited her on to the AT Parenting Survival Podcast to answer the most common questions I get from parents who are navigating both these w...2021-07-2042 minAT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 217: Helping Kids Who Struggle to Eat with ARFID and OCDOCD is scary enough, but when it starves your child it is alarming. That is how it feels when OCD goes for the one thing your child can’t live without - food. In this episode of the AT Parenting Survival Podcast I talk about ARFID and OCD. ARFID stands for Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder and OCD likes to partner with it. I open up about my son’s ongoing struggle with restrictive eating, our journey and what steps we have taken to help him.This podcast episode is sponsored by NOCD. NOCD...2021-07-0657 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 216: Helping Kids with Anxiety or OCD Develop Self-CompassionKids with anxiety and OCD often struggle with self-love and self-compassion. It is developmentally common for all kids to struggle with self-compassion, but when you have anxiety and OCD it can be even harder.In this episode of the AT Parenting Survival Podcast I talk with Madina Alam, a Clinical Advisor with NOCD about how we, as parents, can help our kids develop more self-compassion. When kids have more self-compassion, they are also more empowered to work on their issues! So working on this can be powerful.This podcast episode is sponsored by...2021-06-2936 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 213: When You Hit Compassion Fatigue with Your Child’s Anxiety or OCDNone of us signed up to raise a child with anxiety or OCD. It wasn’t what we dreamed of when we poured over all the pregnancy and parenting books. And yet, here we all are, trying to not only survive, but thrive with our kids and their struggles.What happens when compassion runs dry? What happens when we feel resentful or angry at our kids or the situation?You are not alone if you’ve experienced those feelings. In fact, to be real, most of us have at one point or another.2021-06-0848 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 212: How Understanding Anxiety & OCD Themes Can Help Your ChildAnxiety and OCD come in many flavors. Often we even name these flavors with various titles like symmetry OCD, Harm OCD, Separation Anxiety, Emetophobia etc. Does it really matter what theme of anxiety or OCD my child has?Yes and no. There are pitfalls to wearing blinders and only focusing on your child’s anxiety or OCD theme. However there are also incredible benefits to understanding the various ways anxiety and OCD can show up.In this episode of the AT Parenting Survival Podcast I wil...2021-06-0138 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 211: Why Anxiety or OCD Therapy is Not Enough for Our KidsMany of us think that if only we can find a qualified anxiety or OCD child therapist, all of our child’s struggles would go away.I wish that were true. I wish that was the case for the children that I have treated and for my own children.But the truth is, as parents we have a major role in how our children do. Even if they are refusing help, there are things we do that can help or hurt the situation. There are things that we need to do for ourselves as...2021-05-1836 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 210: How to Help Kids with Anxiety or OCD When They are AngryKids with anxiety or OCD aren’t just fearful, often they are angry. Anxiety and OCD can cause kids to rage, meltdown and talk back. It can make them dig their heels in and be oppositional. But when parents react to those behaviors in “typical” ways, they often hit a brick wall. Why? Because often anxiety and OCD is the undercurrent driving those emotions. So if you don’t address the undercurrent, you're missing a crucial piece of the puzzle.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I tal...2021-05-1139 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 206: How Self-Esteem Plays a Role in Kids with Anxiety or OCDAnxiety 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 their arsenal of weapons. In this podcast, I explore how self-esteem dances with anxiety and OCD. I will highlight what areas to look...2021-04-1335 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 205: Helping Kids with Anxiety or OCD Cope with Grief or TraumaIt’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 family has suffered an unthinkable and sudden loss. My children are grieving the loss of their father. That...2021-04-0630 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 203: How Online Support Can Be A Game Changer for Parents Raising Kids with Anxiety or OCDThere 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 corner of the globe - you just need to know where to find it.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I talk with J...2021-02-0145 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 202: Why Mental Health Professionals are Missing Signs of OCD and The Damage it CausesWhen 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 International OCD Foundation, 1 out of 100 adults have OCD and 1 out of 200 children and teens do as well. Think about that for a moment. The same amount of children have OCD a...2021-01-2559 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 201: How to Motivate Our Kids to Work on Anxiety or OCDOne 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 on the brake.Our children’s struggles are their struggles, not ours. And only they...2021-01-1948 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 200: How to Tell When It’s Difficult Behavior or When It’s Anxiety or OCDYour 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 pass on both their behavior and the task at hand?Not...2021-01-1243 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 197: How to Not Accommodate Your Child’s Anxiety or OCD with Eli LebowitzAnxiety 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 the SPACE Program. An innovative therapeutic approach that focuses solely on what the parent can do to imp...2020-12-2136 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 196: How to Help Your Child with Anxiety or OCD Advocate for ThemselvesAs 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 Podcast, I talk about how we can teach our kids the skills to advocate for themselves. A gift we can give them th...2020-12-1534 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 195: How to Help Your Child Maintain Progress with Anxiety or OCDSo 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 and habits that will make anxiety and OCD manageable throughout their life. So what does the mai...2020-12-0843 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 190: When OCD isn’t a Fear But Rather a Feeling of DisgustUnfortunately 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. This feeling causes so much discomfort that they will do everything in their power to avoid it. That is why they often develop compulsions and extreme avoidance. In this week’s episode of th...2020-10-2625 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 189: Handling the Grief that Comes with an Anxiety or OCD DiagnosisMost 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 struggles that were scooped onto your parental plate. But how do you move through that grief? How do you work through it so you are...2020-10-1937 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 188: Red Flags to Watch for When Working with an Anxiety or OCD TherapistNot 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 segment. In Therapist corner segments, Dr. Allison Solomon, Michelle Massi and I will discuss various topics that impact parents raising kids with anxiety or OCD...2020-10-1255 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 187: Empowering Our Kids with Anxiety or OCD to Help ThemselvesWe 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 to train them. Kids with anxiety or OCD can have a beautifully productive and happy life, but they need the right tools and...2020-10-0533 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 186: Helping Teens with OCD with Lisa CoyneMost 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 Children and Adolescents. She offers us some great guidance and a new perspective on how to help our teens through their OCD struggles. To get the book, Stuff That’s Loud cli...2020-09-2943 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 185: New OCD Graphic Novel for Teens | Interview with Jason Adam KatzensteinJason 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 the struggles of OCD and the feeling of triumph when you start to push back. I had the pleasure of talking with Jason about his li...2020-09-2127 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 179: Understanding Magical Thinking in OCDOCD symptoms and behaviors can look vastly different in each person. You might have a child who has compulsions centered around contamination while another person might have a child with compulsions around magical thinking. You might have a child with both!I always tell parents that you want to be well versed in all the many ways OCD can pop up. OCD is whack-a-mole and it often changes themes and compulsions over time. The best proactive action you can take to help your child with OCD is knowledge.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast I explain what OCD ma...2020-08-1026 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 168: How to Spot OCD Symptoms in TeensMost kids with OCD go into adulthood without a diagnosis. This means years of feeling different. Years of feeling ashamed. And years of little to no support. If parents and therapists can learn how to spot OCD symptoms in teens, we could help them save years of unnecessary pain and suffering.OCD requires a very specific therapeutic approach called Exposure Response Prevention (ERP). If a teen’s OCD symptoms are missed, they are also missing the help they so desperately need and deserve.Sadly teens with OCD who go undiagnosed have a higher likelihood of suffering from depression and ongoing sy...2020-05-2624 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 167: What is Emotional Contamination OCD?OCD can wreak havoc in any family. But one sub-type of OCD that can be particularly painful is emotional contamination OCD. Emotional contamination issues can hurt family relationships and confuse parents.Sadly most people, even mental health professionals, understand very little about how OCD can manifest. OCD isn’t just about germs and constant cleaning. OCD has many themes and sub-types. It is so important for families raising kids with OCD to educate themselves on the various ways OCD can show up. The best defense against OCD is to recognize it’s many disguises.In this week’s AT Parenting Surviv...2020-05-1923 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 163: Three of the Most Commonly Missed Compulsions in Childhood OCDOCD loves to hide. It loves to go undetected. We often think that compulsions are obvious behaviors, like over washing or over straightening. Things that we can see. Things we can measure.But compulsions are often so much more complicated than that. They can be subtle. They can hide in plain sight.In this week’s AT Parenting Survival Podcast, I reveal the three most commonly missed compulsions in childhood OCD. If your child has OCD, it is highly likely that they are doing at least one of these.Links to kids youtube videos:Ocd loop: https://youtu.be/SjoNAKgt2yQ...2020-04-2136 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 146: An Interview with Stuart Ralph from The OCD StoriesIf you really want to learn about OCD, one of the best ways to do it is by listening to the OCD Stories. The OCD Stories is a podcast, created and hosted by Stuart Ralph. He has interviewed hundreds of people with OCD and has brought a face and a narrative to what it is like to have a full life with OCD. He has also had conversations with some of the most inspiring treatment providers and researchers to get their view on best practices and innovations in OCD treatment.I thoroughly enjoy Stuart Ralph’s podcast and it was fu...2019-12-1056 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 139: Did You Know it is OCD Awareness Week? What that Means for You and Your ChildI know there are a bazillion awareness weeks and months. Every cause, issue or disease has a color or a month. But I wanted to talk to you about why OCD Awareness Week is so important and how you can take part with even the smallest of gestures.OCD is one of the most misunderstood disorders. Which is sad considering it can be one of the most debilitating conditions a person can experience. Part of the reason OCD is so debilitating is due to the lack of understanding OCD. Kids are misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all.Stereotypes perpetuate shame...2019-10-1528 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 138: How to Use ACT to Help Kids with OCD with Dr. Patricia Zurita OnaOne of the biggest struggles parents have is motivating their child to work on OCD. Who can blame them? Working on OCD can be extremely difficult and overwhelming. But, there is a tool in the toolbox that many parents haven’t explored – that’s ACT. In this week’s episode on the AT Parenting Survival Podcast, I invited Dr. Patricia Zurita Ona (Dr. Z) on to talk to us about how we can use ACT to help kids with OCD.She offers fun, creative ways to incorporate ACT principles into our exposures.Dr. Z is the author of the new book, Th...2019-10-0854 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 121: Handling Oppositional Behavior in a Child with OCD or AnxietyThey dig their heels in. They refuse to go. They refuse to eat. They refuse to move. Oppositional behavior in a child with OCD or anxiety can be all consuming. So, what are you supposed to do?Well for starters, treating it as typical oppositional behavior won’t work. Either will typical parenting approaches. When a child with OCD or anxiety is being difficult, their opposition is vastly different than the typical oppositional kid.In this week’s podcast episode, I dive into the oppositional behavior so many of us are dealing with when it comes to parenting kids with OCD...2019-06-0428 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 064: Answering Questions About Medicating Kids for Anxiety or OCDOne of the hardest decisions for a parent is whether or not to medicate a child with anxiety or OCD. For many parents who aren’t raising a child with anxiety or OCD this may be a no brainer. But when your child is paralyzed with fear, unable to eat, unable to go to school, is scrubbing their hands until they bleed – you might have a different perspective on medicating kids with anxiety or OCD. ***This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be used to replace the guidance of a qualified professional.Visit my website at www.ATpa...2018-04-2431 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 055: What Helped My OCD: A 12-Year-Old Talks About Her ExperienceHaving OCD is hard enough, but being a kid or teenager with OCD is even harder. Many children with OCD think they are the only ones suffering with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. They don’t realize that OCD in kids is much more common than they think! They struggle alone and many wonder how on earth they are supposed to beat OCD. ***This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be used to replace the guidance of a qualified professional.Visit my website at www.ATparentingSurvival.comInterested in my AT Parenting Community Membership? Click below to join us!http://ww...2018-02-1239 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 52: Tackling Doubt: Child Anxiety and OCD’s Lethal WeaponIf you are dealing with Child anxiety or OCD there is one lethal weapon you are up against….doubt. Almost everything related to anxiety and OCD comes down to doubt and uncertainty. When you conquer doubt, you conquer anxiety and OCD. Not sure how to do this with your child? Let me know you how… ***This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be used to replace the guidance of a qualified professional.Visit my website at www.ATparentingSurvival.comInterested in my AT Parenting Community Membership? Click below to join us!http://www.atparentingcommunity.com Sign up for my w...2018-01-3030 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 050: Explaining OCD to People Who Don’t Get it: Helping Siblings, Family & Friends Understand OCDDo you know what is almost worse than having a child with OCD? Seeing your child be surrounded by people who just don’t get OCD. Siblings who tease their brother or sister for their “strange” behavior. Partners who tell your child to “just stop!” Relatives who think they are being helpful when they tell you “they’ll grow out of it.” And teachers who don’t understand how your child can have OCD when they just don’t see it. Explaining OCD to people who just don’t get it can be daunting. OCD can be complicated even for parents to understand...2018-01-1629 min
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & AnxietyPSP 020: Parenting Children with OCD | Doing the Opposite of What Feels RightSummary of Podcast: Parenting children with OCD is not easy. What are you supposed to do when your child is constantly confessing behaviors to you? Should you ignore it when they do their compulsions or help them complete it? In this episode I talk about the most helpful ways to respond. In this episode you will learn: How kids with OCD often involve their parents in their compulsive behavior. How to partner with your child and not your Child's OCD. The best ways to respond when your child is doing a compulsion. ***This podcast is for informational purposes only and...2017-06-1325 min