How to recognize and help your child with OCD, according to an expert whose son suffers from it

She has worked with children suffering from OCD for nearly 13 years. Despite her experience, Becker-Haimes says it “took me a while to realize what was going on with my own child.”

Becker-Haimes, who describes herself as someone who doesn't share personal information, says she made the “really hard decision” to speak out about her experience to help other families and encourage them to seek help quickly. Earlier treatment leads to better outcomes, she says.

Here's what she said.

What is OCD?

The main characteristic of this disorder is that thoughts and behaviors become increasingly time-consuming. For some sufferers, this can take up several hours a day.

At what age does it start and how can parents recognize it?

We see OCD appearing in children as young as four years old, but on average it occurs in prepubescent or early teenage years.

With younger children, we often see them seeking reassurance, asking their parents the same question over and over again, or demanding that they say certain things in a certain way.

Parents often get caught up in their children's rituals and find themselves walking on eggshells, feeling like they have to do the same thing in the same way over and over again for seemingly incomprehensible reasons.

The child becomes very anxious or distressed when these rituals are not followed – this can be an early sign of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

In teenagers, recurring behaviors such as unusual showering or bathing habits may be a sign.

How did you recognize obsessive-compulsive disorder based on your son's behavior?

At first I thought it was partly just curiosity about how food is prepared or how electrical cables work.

It took me a month or two to realize that these were the same questions. The answers I gave him didn't seem to satisfy him. In fact, they only led to the questions being asked more often.

What we observed with our child was a lot of questions about meals, whether the food had been prepared properly.

This is an example of how parents sometimes get drawn into rituals.

Sometimes OCD can look like a tantrum. We've seen many things like that – tantrums that seemed nonsensical and completely unrealistic. [proportion] to what happened.

What steps have you taken to help him?

One of the tricks we often use with children is to help them name and disagree with their OCD. In his case, we called it a “tricky brain” trying to boss him around.

We said, “What is the tricky brain telling you right now? What do we know is true? How can we push back the tricky brain and be brave?”

We use many rewards.

After trying on our own for a few months, we reached out to another OCD specialist to get our son more specialized care. It really helped us.

Do you have any advice for parents?

This is not a job that can be done perfectly. I know how to coach parents. I know what to do, and there are moments when I ask as a parent, “Why are you yelling at your child? That's ineffective.”

It's ineffective, but you're only human and raising a child is difficult.

Raising a child with OCD comes with many stressors and challenges, and connecting with others who have been through this or are currently going through it is a really important part of this journey.

We try to make kids feel better in the moment because we're parents and we want our kids to feel better. But if our child's behavior is due to unhelpful fears or intrusive thoughts or obsessions, we're not actually helping them; we're helping the OCD.

The sooner you try to break some of these rituals, the better it generally is for the child.

The term “OCD” is often misused to describe people who are simply neat or organized. What do you think about this?

All this stems from the stigma and exclusion of people struggling with serious mental illness.

We're moving in a direction where we're more thoughtful about the words we use. I hope that OCD will be the next challenge.