What to do if my child has OCD?

Pediatric OCD is diagnosed in school-age children between age 7 to 12. The diagnosis of OCD in kids and teens is often overlooked and under-diagnosed. If your child struggles with the following symptoms, your child may struggle with OCD:

These obsessions are the most common among kids and teens:

Fear of dirt or germs
Fear of contamination
A need for symmetry, order, and precision
Religious obsessions
Preoccupation with body wastes
Lucky and unlucky numbers
Sexual or aggressive thoughts
Fear of illness or harm coming to oneself or relatives
Preoccupation with household items
Inrusive sounds or words

These compulsions are the most common among kids and teens:

Grooming rituals, including hand washing, showering, and teeth brushing
Repeating rituals, including going in and out of doorways, needing to move through spaces in a special way, or rereading, erasing, and rewriting
Checking rituals to make sure that an appliance is off or a door is locked, and repeatedly checking homework
Rituals to undo contact with a “contaminated” person or object
Touching rituals
Rituals to prevent harming self or others
Ordering or arranging objects
Counting rituals
Hoarding and collecting things of no apparent value
Cleaning rituals related to the house or other items

OCD is like the hiccups of the brain. It makes your child get stuck and cannot stop doing the compulsions. When you attempt to interrupt OCD, your child can have a melt down. The cause of OCD is believed to reside in the deep brain circutry that involves prefrontal cortex (orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortexes), basal ganglia, and thalamus. Very rarely, certain autoimmune process after streptococcus infection can trigger OCD and it is called PANDAS (pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with Streptococcal infections).

When you suspect your child struggles with OCD, it is very important to work with professionals who specialize in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Your involvement in treatment process is also very important to the treatment outcomes. Sometimes, medications can facilitate the therapeutic process of CBT for severe cases of OCD. Other alternative treatment for refractory OCD include transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and deep brain stimulation (DBS).