What’s the Difference between an Intrusive Thought and a Normal One?

Many kids and teens wonder if they’re experiencing intrusive thoughts. Keep reading to learn more about them, and how they differ from more “normal” thoughts and ideas. Image by Liza Summer via Pexels.

As an elder milennial therapist, I’ve decided I don’t need TikTok in my life. I have plenty of apps and screens stealing my attention as it is! Instead, I behave like a responsible adult: I wait for all that TikTok content to make its way over to Instagram, where I consume it a few weeks (or months) late. This is how I discovered that, apparently, intrusive thoughts became kind of A Thing on TikTok for a while this summer.

Suddenly, my feed was awash with memes about “letting intrusive thoughts win.” Who would have guessed that this humble psychological symptom would ever enjoy such fame? Although the memes have slowed down, mentions of intrusive thoughts in my therapy office have not. So, I figured it was time to talk about intrusive thoughts: what they are, why they happen, and what makes them different from other, more “normal” thoughts.

Can You Really “Let the Intrusive Thoughts Win?”

Before we dig into intrusive thoughts, let’s talk about the meme. Maybe you’re an elder milennial, like me, who doesn’t have TikTok and somehow missed this entire phenomenon. Or, maybe you’ve found this article many years from now, when the intrusive thought’s 15 minutes of fame is nothing but a distant memory. Let’s take a journey back in time to this strange cultural moment in the summer of 2023…

According to the website Know Your Meme, catchphrases like “He/she let the intrusive thoughts win” and “Intrusive thoughts won” are “used to caption memes in which people, usually celebrities, exhibit behavior that breaks social norms. In memes, intrusive thoughts are typically confused with impulsive behavior.” Basically, these memes usually feature video of someone doing something kind of random or weird, usually to comedic effect. Said something awkward on live TV? You let the intrusive thought win. Hit a pane of glass with a hammer to see what would happen next? Intrusive thought won.

As an OCD therapist (and a person with OCD), am I offended by these memes? No. I am also a human being with a sense of humor. But they’re not a very accurate portrayal of intrusive thoughts. As Know Your Meme wisely points out, many of these memes show examples of impulsive behavior, as opposed to an intrusive thought.

It’s really common for a person to act on an impulse. It’s much less common for someone to act on an intrusive thought. In fact, that’s kind of an intrusive thought’s whole deal: people really, really don’t want to do what the thought is telling them to. And in almost every case, the person wins over their thought.

Intrusive vs. Impulsive: What’s the Difference?

An impulsive thought happens when we get the urge to do something without reflecting on cause and effect. We’ve all had these moments where we react in a knee-jerk way, without considering whether or not it’s actually a good idea. Most of us are more likely to act impulsively when we’re overwhelmed by emotion: think about the last time you blurted something unfortunate when you were angry.

Generally speaking, impulses are urges that, on some level, we want to act on, even if we know it might not be a great idea. Someone swipes a cookie off the plate because it’s too tempting to resist. A toddler runs off into traffic because they don’t have the self-control to hold themselves back. Curiosity gets the best of that Instagram guy, and he hits the car window with the hammer. Intrusive thoughts can be good, bad, or neutral, but usually they are fleeting. If you ignore them, they go away and never return.

Intrusive thoughts, on the other hand, are almost always negative. In fact, they’re often beyond negative: they’re dark, frightening, or embarrassing. They aren’t always realistic, either: they can be pretty illogical and bizare. Unlike an impulsive thought, intrusive thoughts sometimes repeat themselves. Even if you succeed in ignoring it or pushing it away once, it may pop up again when you least expect it.

Most importantly, intrusive thoughts are usually the total opposite of what a person wants to do in real life. A peaceful person may find themselves having violent thoughts, or a caring person may experience cruel thoughts about a loved one. People who suffer from intrusive thoughts are usually horrified by them. They may worry that they’ll somehow lose control and act on their unwanted thought, even though it’s the last thing they’d ever want to do.

Okay, So What Is an Intrusive Thought?

Intrusive thoughts are sudden, unwanted thoughts that are upsetting to experience, because they go against a person’s actual wants and desires. Photo by Andrew Neel via Pexels.

An intrusive thought is an unexpected, unwanted thought, image, or idea that makes the thinker feel uncomfortable. These thoughts pop into the brain on their own, and they’re not something a person is trying to think about. Because they’re outside of our conscious control, people often feel like these thoughts are “weird” in some way, almost like they have a mind of their own.

Intrusive thoughts often feel out of character, and may go against the thinker’s morals and values. They can sometimes be illogical or bizarre, leaving a person wondering why on earth they’d ever think such a thing. These thoughts are usually negative and cause upset for the person having them, although this can range from mild discomfort to extreme distress, disgust, or fear.

Intrusive thoughts often fall into one of the following “taboo” categories. These tend to be subjects we don’t feel comfortable thinking about, which makes the thoughts extra disturbing when they show up:

• Violence, aggression, and hurting others

• Sex, puberty, and sexuality

• Germs and illness

• Bad things happening to yourself or others

• Doubt about whether something was done correctly

• Doing something “wrong” or immoral

• Doing something that goes against your religion or angers God

Some intrusive thoughts are a one-time occurrence. Other thoughts repeat in the thinker’s mind, showing up over and over again. As you can probably imagine, this can cause a lot of stress.

Examples of Intrusive and “Normal” Thoughts

I’ll share some examples here of how an intrusive thought might look when compared to a similar, more typical thought. Please keep in mind that these are just examples and that intrusive thoughts come in many shapes and sizes! The quality of the thought—the fact that it pops up when you don’t want it to—is a big part of what makes it intrusive.

“Normal” thought: I should wash my hands before dinner.
Possible intrusive thought: Maybe touching that expired yogurt container got food poisoning germs on my hands, and now I’ll throw up.

“Normal” thought: What if I get a bad grade on tomorrow’s test?
Possible intrusive thought: What if I scream out a swear word in the middle of the test tomorrow?

“Normal” thought: I’m mad at my sister.
Possible intrusive thought: Having an image come to mind of pushing your sister down the stairs, for no reason, when you’re not angry.

“Normal” thought: Now that I’ve said my prayers, I can go to bed.
Possible intrusive thought: What I did something bad today that I don’t remember, and now God is mad at me?

“Normal” thought: My mom is picking me up from soccer practice tonight.
Possible intrusive thought: Unexpectedly picturing your parent’s car crashing.

Sometimes it can help to see an example in writing, especially if you think you may be suffering from intrusive thoughts yourself. If one or more of these thoughts felt familiar to you, you’re definitely not alone. Many people have intrusive thoughts—probably way more than you’d guess.

Does Having Intrusive Thoughts Mean You’re Crazy?

Intrusive thoughts can make you feel out of control, but they don’t mean you’re going crazy. They’re a really common experience! Photo by Liza Summer via Pexels.

You may have noticed in my example section above that I put the word “normal” in quotes. That’s because even though intrusive thoughts feel extremely abnormal, they’re actually incredbly common. A 1995 study found that 90% of people report having intrusive thoughts, which means it’s actually crazier not to have them. As uncomfortable as they are, intrusive thoughts are just part of the human experience.

I explain intrusive thoughts to kids in my therapy office like this: imagine your teacher is making you write 100 essays a day. From the time you wake up to the time you go to bed, you’re just writing essay after essay. With all that practice, you’d probably come up with a few pretty good ones. But a lot of them would be mediocre at best. And some of them would be absolute garbage. How could they not be? You’re writing 100 a day!

We have way more than100 thoughts a day. The average person has around 60,000 thoughts. With a number that high, some of them are bound to be less than awesome. Intrusive thoughts are the brain’s equivalent of a burp or a fart. They’re just a little poof of randomness that our brain hands to us asking “I dunno, is this anything?”

So if 90% of the population is having these thoughts, why isn’t everyone panicking? Why aren’t the intrusive thoughts winning? Here’s the deal: most people barely notice their intrusive thoughts. The thought pops up, the person thinks “Huh, weird.”, brushes it off, and moves on with their day. They know it’s not something they really want to do, so they don’t take it seriously. It’s only when people have trouble setting their intrusive thoughts aside that they start to cause problems.

Does Having Intrusive Thoughts Mean You Have OCD?

Having the occasional, fleeting intrusive thought doesn’t mean you have a mental health problem. Like I mentioned above, it’s just part of being human. However, intrusive thoughts can be part of several different conditions. In these cases, the intrusive thoughts tend to be frequent and overwhelming to the point that they start to interfere with a person’s daily life.

Intrusive thoughts are best known as a symptom of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD. People with OCD have a much harder time disregarding their intrusive thoughts. They may start to question whether the thought could be true, or if having the thought in the first place means they’re a bad person.

The intrusive thoughts show up over and over, and they cause so much anxiety that the OCD sufferer is willing to do just about anything to make them go away. This can lead to a vicious cycle of repeated thoughts or worries—called obsesions—and repeated behaviors or rituals—called compulsions. Unfortunately, the more a person gives in to their compulsive behavior, the worse the obsessive worries tend to get.

Intrusive thoughts can show up as a part of other conditions, too, such as:

• PTSD

• Anxiety Disorders

• Depression

• Eating Disorders

If your child’s intrusive thoughts are happening often and causing a lot of distress, it’s worth speaking to a therapist to see if an underlying condition could be causing the problem.

Therapy Can Help Kids and Teens with Intrusive Thoughts

Therapists can help kids with intrusive thoughts learn to take them less seriously, so the thoughts don’t feel so overwhelming. Photo by Julia M Cameron via Pexels.

Intrusive thoughts are freaky. They are weird, they’re unpredictable, and they can be difficult to ignore. But they don’t have to take over your life! If you’ve taken anything away from this post, I hope it’s this: intrusive thoughts are all bark but no bite. They’re not as powerful as they feel, and they can’t compel you to do something you don’t want to do.

We have great therapy options to help kids with intrusive thoughts and OCD. Exposure and Response Prevention was designed specifically to help people cope with their OCD symptoms. It’s a specialized version of CBT, a popular, skills-based therapy approach that has helped people of all ages manage many forms of anxiety.

If you need help for a child or teenager with intrusive thoughts, take a look at the International OCD Foundation’s searchable database to find a therapist near you who has completed ERP training. You can even look for therapists who’ve gotten specialized education in how to practice ERP therapy with kids. You may want to consider broadening your search to include therapists throughout your state, if online therapy is an option for you.

If you live in North Carolina, New York, or Florida, I may be able to help. I’m a children’s therapist trained in pediatric ERP therapy—and I was also diagnosed with OCD as a kid. I’ve been on both sides of the OCD therapy equation, so I know exactly how hard it is for my kid clients to face their fears. I meet with kids in-person in my office in Davidson, North Carolina, and online with families throughout these three states where I’m licensed.

Looking to get started in therapy? Reach out to me here, or check out my About and FAQ pages to learn more about me and my work.

How Can I Help My Minor with OCD?

OCD symptoms often develop for minors during the tween or teen years, and most people are diagnosed before age 25.

If you’re looking for help for your minor child with OCD, you’re not alone. It’s common for OCD symptoms to first show up in childhood: two of the most common times to develop OCD are during the tween years or the late teen years. In general, most people with OCD start noticing symptoms before age 25.

Research suggests boys tend to devleop OCD at an earlier age than girls do. However, every kid is different. For example, I’m a children’s OCD therapist who was also diagnosed with OCD as a child, and my symptoms started at age 7.

Regardless of your child’s age, your support as a parent is really important. Kids—especially young ones—need their parents to be involved in the therapy process, and this is especially true when it comes to OCD therapy. The good news is that your support will have a huge, positive impact on your chid’s recovery from OCD. In this post, you’ll learn 5 simple ways you can help your minor child—and yourself—through OCD

Identifying OCD Symptoms in Minors

It’s not always easy to identify OCD symptoms in children. Kids are often aware that the worries OCD gives them are unusual, and will try to mask their symptoms as a result They may feel embarassed, ashamed, or afraid of the thoughts they’re having. They don’t want other people to know about these weird thoughts, so they cover them up instead.

Also, a child’s OCD symptoms might not fit the mold of what we expect OCD to look like. We might envision a very neat, orderly person who’s focused on avoiding germs or keeping things organized. In reality, OCD can look many different ways, and the signs are often very subtle. It’s entirely possible for a child with OCD to be messy, disorganized, or totally unworried about dirt or germs.

People with OCD have two things in common: obsessive thoughts and compulsive behavior. An obsession is an unwanted thought, worry, or mental image that pops up at unwanted times. It’s hard to get rid of, and causes a lot of anxiety or distress. In order to deal with these obsessions, OCD sufferers feel like they have to do something to alleviate their anxiety. This repeated behavior is called a compulsion.

Common obsessions for kids with OCD include:

• Worries related to getting sick, throwing up, or contracting germs

• Fear about somehow losing control and doing something bad, like hurting themselves or someone else (even though they don’t want to)

• Thoughts that if they don’t do something just right, something terrible could happen

• Worries about bad things happening to loved ones

• Doubts about whether or not they may have misbehaved or done something wrongj

• Worries about sexuality or being gay in children who aren’t otherwise questioning their identity

You may notice compulsive behaviors like these in your minor child with OCD:

• Checking and-rechecking that they’ve done something, like turned off a light switch

• Creating rituals that have to be done exactly the right way, such as a specific process for washing hands or a rigid bedtime routine

• Excessive cleaning, showering, or handwashing

• Repeatedly asking for reassurance about things, even after they’ve been given an answer

• Confessing bad thoughts or possible misbehavior to a parent

• Repeatedly touching or counting objects, or repeating actions to make them symmetrical (like tapping one leg and then the other)

The tricky thing about OCD is that compulsions never permanently get rid of an obsessive worry. This means that people get stuck in a cycle of doing their compulsive behavior over and over in order to feel some sense of relief.

Five Ways to Help Your Minor Child with OCD

As a parent, you can help your child understand their symptoms and work together as a team to combat OCD.

Now that we’ve reviewed the symptoms of OCD, let’s talk about how you can help your child to cope. OCD is a stressful diagnosis not just for the child who is suffering, but their entire family. Keep reading to learn ways to demystify OCD, reduce feelings of shame and loneliness, and start looking at OCD from a different perspective. These 5 steps will help you and your child look at OCD in a new light, so you can start working on healing together.

These techniques aren’t a replacement for therapy (more on that below), but they are tried-and-true approaches that I teach in my child therapy office. They’re also exactly the kinds of things that I think would have helped my family when I was a kid. If you’ve just noticed OCD symptoms in your minor child and you’re not sure what to do, start here.

#1: Help Your Child Understand OCD

I mentioned above that kids with OCD often know that their thoughts are unusual. That’s because OCD is ego dystonic: this means that the thoughts it causes go against a person’s temperament and values. They can feel weird, confusing, or “other,” almost like they’re not coming from you. Often, OCD preys on a child’s worst fears: peaceful kids may experience violent images, responsible children might worry about mistakes, and typically subdued kids can suddenly have thoughts about losing control and doing something inappropriate.

As you can imagine, this is really upsetting. Kids with OCD may worry they’re going crazy or that something is deeply wrong with them. They may also assume they’re the only one having these “weird” thoughts. This is especially true if their obsessions are about something embarrassing, shameful, or taboo.

You can help your child understand OCD so they feel less alone. Learning how OCD works can help kids realize that their symptoms aren’t so unusual after all, and that there is treatment that will help. Start by teaching a few important facts about OCD:

• Nothing a person does causes OCD. It’s mostly genetic, and not anybody’s fault.

• Just because you have a bad thought doesn’t mean you’ll act on it. In fact, people with OCD tend to have obsessive thoughts about things they’d never do in real life.

• OCD isn’t dangerous: it’s just a little glitch or “hiccup” that happens in the brain.

• You can fight back against OCD by not doing what it tells you to do: this is hard, but it teaches your OCD who is boss!

Reading books together is a great way to get these points across. It gives parents language they can use to explain OCD, and seeing that someone has gone through the trouble of writing a book can reassure kids that they really aren’t alone. What to Do When Your Brain Gets Stuck is a classic, and many people enjoy Up and Down the Worry Hill, too.

Your child might also appreciate taking a look at a list of celebrities who have OCD. About 1.2% of people are diagnosed with OCD. This means there are plenty of public figures who have been affected by it, including David Beckham, Daniel Radcliffe, and Camila Cabello.

#2: Be a United Team with Your Child Against OCD

Your child can separate herself from her symptoms by drawing a picture of what she imagines OCD looks like.

Battling OCD is not easy work. You have to do exactly the thing your brain is saying not to do in order to feel better! This can put parents at odds with their kids, because parents are the ones who have to hold bnoundaries and stick with the plan to overcome OCD. It’s important to remind your child (and yourself) that this fight is not you against them: it’s the two of you against OCD.

You can maintain a united front by imagining OCD as a little character or creature that is totally separate from your child. This is called “externalizing:" it’s a tool we use in therapy to help separate a problem from the person suffering from it. Externalizing OCD can help you feel like you’ve got a common enemy. It also reduces some of the shame and frustration kids feel when they experience thoughts and urges beyond their control.

Encourage your child to give their OCD a name: kids often choose something funny and nonthreatening, like “Bob” or “Dr. Annoying.” Your child might also enjoy drawing a picture of what they imagine their OCD would look like. Creating this kind of OCD character is a coping skill I use with almost all kids at the beginning of treatment (you can check out other OCD coping skills here).

Next time you notice your child saying or doing something related to their OCD, don’t blame them—blame Bob.

#3: Don’t Fall Into the Reassurance Trap

It’s only natural to want to comfort your child when they’re worried. As parents, we probably offer reassurance all day without thinking twice. Sometimes, a simple “it’s okay” or “everything will be alright” is all a child needs to hear in order to feel better.

Unfortunately, the usual rules don’t apply to OCD. Reassurance typically does more harm than good: even though it helps kids feel better in the short term, it fuels their anxiety in the long run. Reassurance-seeking is the most common OCD compulsion I see among kids in my therapy practice. Cutting back on reassurances can go a long way toward helping your child.

You might notice your child asking you the same question over and over, even after you’ve already explained that things will be fine. That’s because reassurance only quiets the OCD worries for a little bit. The OCD worries always come back, which means your child has to ask again to get relief. Over time, this pattern actually makes the symptoms worse.

One of the big goals of OCD treatment is to help parents gradually stop enabling their child’s OCD by giving into its demands. This means gradually scaling back on giving reassurance if you’ve been doing it a lot. If your child’s symptosm are mild, you may have good luck doing this on your own at home. If you’ve been stuck in this pattern for a while, a therapist can help you to gently break the cycle.

#4: Research Therapists who Treat Minors with OCD

Databases like the one provided by IOCDF can help you find therapists who specialize in treating OCD in minors.

While some minor children will recover from OCD without therapy, many will need extra help. Research has found that for about 1 in 5 kids, symptoms will resolve on their own, without treatment. For that remaining 4 out of 5, therapy will help kids get back on track and manage their symtpoms.

It might sound daunting at first to hear that most kids with OCD require therapy to recover. However, there are a couple of big silver linings here. The first bit of good news is that we have a form of therapy called ERP that’s been designed specifically for treating OCD, and it is highly effective. We also know that entering therapy early in life helps people with childhood-onset OCD make a much fuller recovery. That’s good news for your child!

Working with OCD is a specialty: not all therapists have extensive training in this area. The same is true for working with children. Finding a therapist who specializes in both OCD and working with minors might require a little extra legwork. The International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) has a searchable list of therapists who are trained in ERP, the “gold standard” treatment for OCD, including therapists who have been specifically trained to treat children. You can also run a search on Psychology Today to look for therapists in your area who offer ERP and see kids or teens.

Not all therapy therapy training programs don’t cover OCD or child therapy in tons of detail, so it can help to ask prospective therapists what their training and experience is with these two groups. Registered Play Therapists often have lots of training working with kids. ERP is the most common, best-researched therapy for OCD treatment. You can also ask more general questions, like the ones in this post, to get a sense for whether a therapist seems like the right fit for your family.

#5: Practice Self-Care So You Can Support Your Child

OCD is tough for kids, but it’s incredibly draining for their families, too. The bigger OCD symptoms grow, the more time and energy it takes to keep up with all the compulsive behaviors and rituals. Families—and parents especially—may feel like they’re bending over backwards or walking on eggshells to avoid triggering their child’s OCD. And even with all that effort, new worries pop up, seemingly out of nowhere.

It’s common for parents to feel exhausted, hopeless, or even resentful when they’ve been dealing with a child’s OCD for a long time. Kids often pick up on this tension, which adds extra stress to an already stressful situation. Gradually facing fears through OCD treatment is the most surefire way out of this vicious cycle, but it requires a lot of work, too. You’ll need a lot of patience and compassion to help your child through therapy.

Treating OCD is more of a marathon than a sprint. Resist the temptation to put yourself last on the to do list, and make sure you’re setting aside time to do whatever will help you continue to show up for your child. Date nights, exercise, time away from parenting, or watching something on TV that isn’t Bluey all count. You can also ask to speak to your child’s counselor in private or seek out your own therapist if you need to vent and get your own support.

OCD Therapy for Minors in North Carolina

You can help your child through OCD with the support of a therapist. I provide OCD treatment for kids and their families throughout North Carolina, New York, and Florida.

I hope you’ve found this article helpful, and that it gives you some options to try while you consider looking for a therapist. If you’re looking for OCD counseling for your child, I may be able to help! I’m physically located in Davidson, North Carolina, and can meet with local children in-person or online. I’m also available for virtual sessions with families in Florida and New York. You can learn more about my practice or email me to get started.

Looking for more information on how OCD affects minors? Check out some of my other posts:

Can a Child Have Mild OCD?
What Are the 4 Types of OCD?
How to Help a Child with Intrusive Thoughts
Does Childhood OCD Go Away?

Can a Child Have Mild OCD?

It’s bedtime, and your child’s goodnight routine is a little longer than usual. Over the past few weeks, it seems like things have gotten a little more elaborate, and the steps have to be done just right. Or, maybe you’ve noticed your child repeatdly asking if things are okay—even when they know the answer is yes.

You know kids can have quirky habits sometimes, and your child has always been prone to worrying. Is this just a passing phase, or could your child possibly have mild OCD? Is “mild OCD” even a thing?

When we see OCD portrayed on TV, it’s often easy to spot. Characters with OCD usually have easily noticeable symptoms, and they’re often pretty severe. In real life, OCD is much better at hiding: symptoms can be really subtle. What’s more, kids with OCD sometimes feel they need to hide their compulsive behavior. Children are often aware that not everybody has these “weird” thoughts and urges, and so they try not to advertise what’s going on.

The short answer is: yes, it’s very possible to have mild OCD. For the longer answer, keep reading! We’ll take a look at the different, sneaky ways that OCD can show up for kids.

First, Let’s Clarify What OCD Is

If your child’s problems are mild, it might be harder to distinguish whether or not OCD is really what you’re dealing with. Anxiety and OCD have a lot in common. And some personality traits and quirks can resemble OCD too, like perfectionism, superstitiousness, and orderliness.

People with OCD share 2 big symptoms in common:

• They have recurring unwanted thoughts, urges, or mental images. These are unwanted, tough to control, and cause the person anxiety or distress.

• The person tries to push away or “neutralize” these thoughts, usually with some kind of special thought or action.

That’s where we get the name “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder” from. The unwanted thought that shows up again and again is the obsession. The thing a person feels they have to do in order to make the uncomfortable thought go away is the compulsion. The trick is that, while compulsions make a person feel better in the short term, they actually make the thoughts and anxiety worse over time.

A child who holds herself to a high standard at school, prefers a clean room, or likes to carry a lucky charm on important days is unlikely to have OCD. However, a child whose worries seem to be stuck in a loop, or who repeatedly performs the same action might be showing OCD symptoms.

OCD Has a Range of Severities

Just like most other mental health problems, OCD can be mild, moderate, or severe. Some children might experience OCD as a minor inconvenience, while for others it can be completely debilitating. The media tends to show mental illness in its most severe forms because that’s what’s most dramatic and interesting. However, this isn’t the reality for all kids with OCD.

Many kids are able to fly under the radar for a while, without their symptoms being apparent to others. Even parents may not notice anything unusual, especially at first. By the time a child comes to treatment, they may have had OCD symptoms for quite a while.

Therapists look at a few areas to see if a child’s symptoms are mild, moderate, or severe:

• Frequency: A child whose worry shows up once a day may be on the midler end of the OCD spectrum. A child whose thought pops up many times throughout the day may have more severe OCD.

• Intensity: If a child can sometimes brush off the thought or it causes only mild anxiety, their symptoms are more mild. If a child can’t let go of a thought and it causes extreme stress, that’s severe.

• Duration: Kids with mild OCD symptoms may spend a few minutes a day doing something compulsively. Children struggling with severe OCD may spend hours.

• Functioning: Mild OCD may not really get in the way of things like school, friendships, or other everyday activities. On the other hand, severe OCD can affect relationships and keep kids from doing the things they want or need to do.

If you take your child to a therapist, they can use a special assessment to confirm an OCD diagnosis, and to see if your child’s symptoms fall into the mild, moderate, or severe range. This can be helpful to know because therapy recommendations will be different depending on where your child falls in that range.

You May Have Caught Your Child’s Symptoms Early

If you are noticing mild OCD symptoms in your child, it’s possible you’ve caught your child’s condition pretty early, while it’s still developing. As worrying as it can be to learn that a child is having these kinds of problems, discovering them early is great news.

Even though OCD is common, it can be hard to catch: one study found that it took the average OCD patient over 12 years to get a correct diagnosis! Younger people in the study had an easier time than older people when it came to getting diagnosed, but this is still a pretty long time to wait for the right help.

Research also tell us that kids who participate OCD therapy early often have better results than adults do. OCD symptoms tend to start in childhood or adolescence, so kids who are in therapy generally haven’t lived with their symptoms for as long as adults have. Quick treatment seems to make a difference: on average, they had more improvement in their symptoms than the adults in the study.

One final reason that it’s great to catch OCD symptoms early: mild OCD doesn’t always stay mild. When left untreated, kids may develop more complex and time-consuming rituals, and have more frequent and severe worries. As OCD grows, it can have more and more of an impact on a child’s quality of life. Kids who start therapy when their OCD is still mild can avoid a lot of this difficulty, and get their lives back on track sooner.

Sometimes, OCD Symptoms Are Invisible

There may be more to your child’s OCD than meets the eye. OCD involves obsessinos and compulsions that aren’t always easy to see. When we imagine a child performing OCD rituals, we might think of physical actions like handwashing or flipping light switches repeatedly. However, kids can have mental rituals as well, that don’t involve physically doing anything. Some examples are:

• Thinking a special word or thought in order to “undo” their worry.

• Praying compulsively

• Making mental lists

• Counting in their head

• Reviewing certain events over and over to double check them

Other times, compulsions involve saying something rather than doing something. These can also be a little more difficult to notice, at first. Pay attention for behaviors like:

• Asking for reassurance over and over

• Saying “I love you,” “I’m sorry”, or another phrase excessively

• Repeated confessions about things the child fears they have done wrong, such as having a bad thought, or possibly saying something unkind to someone

When parents begin to take stock of compulsions like these, what initially looked like mild OCD may look more complicated. There can be a lot happening beneath the surface, and these kinds of mental thoughts and rituals can be difficult for kids to talk about, or even put into words.

Do Kids with Mild OCD Still Need Therapy?

Even if your child’s symptoms seem mild, it’s a good idea to consult with a therapist to see if counseling could help. A therapist who specializes in OCD can complete a full assessment to see if any sneaky symptoms are going unnoticed. They can teach you and your child skills to deal with OCD worries without giving in to them all the time. Sometimes, it can be reassuring for a child just to hear from an adult who isn’t their parent that OCD worries are common, harmless, and not a sign of “going crazy.”

Occasionally, OCD symptoms may resolve on their own without therapy. Often, however, therapy is needed in order to overcome them. We know that mild symptoms tend to grow worse over time, and that younger kids do better in OCD therapy than adults. Because of all this, it’s worth talking to a counselor and considering therapy, even if your child’s symptoms aren’t getting in the way of life too much right now.

There are some great self-help resources out there for children with OCD. My favorite book for kids, What to Do When Your Brain Gets Stuck, is a great place to start. Up and Down The Worry Hill is another popular option. These books can give your family some helpful background information on OCD and how it works. You’ll also find tools you can use to take action right away.

How Can I Help My Child With Mild OCD?

There’s a lot you can do as a parent to help your child with OCD. In fact, parents are an important part of OCD therapy. A child’s symptoms tend to affect the whole family. Whether you’re waiting around for a child to complete a ritual or answering a question for the 100th time, parents ofen notice that they are changing the way they do things in order to keep the peace at home.

Unfortunately, OCD is never satisfied with what you give it. The more you give in to OCD, the bigger it grows. That’s why mild OCD often morphs over time into more moderate or severe illness.

OCD therapy helps both kids and parents to break this cycle. Using a form of therapy called Exposure and Response Prevention, a therapist can help your family learn new ways to stand up to OCD without giving in to compulsions and rituals. Kids can learn that they don’t have to listen to the thoughts and worries OCD gives them. Parents can learn how to support children without giving in to OCD’s demands.

If you’re noticing mild symptoms of OCD in your child, you can help right away by letting your child know that OCD thoughts are just random noise. The thoughts don’t mean anything, can’t hurt anyone, and everybody—even non-OCD sufferers—gets weird thoughts sometimes.

If you’re looking for help to deal with thoughts and worries right now, my free coping skills guide might help. You can download 5 Coping Skills for Anxious Tweens (That Aren’t Just Deep Breathing) right now, wherever you are.

If you’re hoping to begin therapy for OCD and you live in the states of North Carolina, New York, or FLorida, I may be able to help! I’m certified in Exposure and Response Prevention, the therapy that’s been proven most effective for OCD. As someone with a childhood OCD diagnosis, I remember how scary and overwhelming these symptoms can be. And I know that ERP therapy can really make a difference in the lives of children, whether their symptoms are mild or not.

You can learn more about ERP here, or contact me to inquire about starting therapy.