“He’s So OCD” - When Should Parents Be Concerned? with Dr. Chad Brandt
“He’s So OCD” - When Should Parents Be Concerned?
We use the term OCD incredibly casually.
“My closet is color-coded. I’m so OCD.”
“He has to have everything organized. He’s so OCD.”
“My kid wants his toys lined up perfectly. Is that OCD?”
But obsessive-compulsive disorder is very different from simply liking things a certain way. And when you're a parent, figuring out that difference can be incredibly confusing.
Kids love routines. They repeat things. They can be rigid. They can become very attached to a particular game, bedtime ritual, stuffed animal, or way of doing something.
So when does normal childhood repetitive behavior become something parents should be concerned about?
That's what I wanted to explore with psychologist Dr. Chad Brandt, who specializes in treating severe OCD in children and adolescents.
Our conversation gets at something I think is especially important in parenting and child development: We don't want to pathologize every quirky thing our children do, but we also don't want to dismiss symptoms when a child is genuinely struggling.
What Does OCD Actually Mean?
OCD stands for obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Dr. Brandt broke it down simply.
The obsession is a recurring thought the person doesn't like and wants to get rid of.
The compulsion is what they do to try to make that thought or the distress associated with it go away.
The disorder part means the cycle is interfering with daily functioning.
That last piece is important.
There is a huge difference between preferring your closet organized by color and spending enormous amounts of time trying to make something feel exactly right because you're afraid of what might happen if you don't.
OCD is fear-based.
And according to Dr. Brandt, it can begin consuming minutes, hours, or even enormous portions of a person's day.
That's very different from being organized or particular.
Kids Are Allowed to Like Things a Certain Way
One of the reasons identifying OCD in children can be difficult is that kids naturally have preferences.
Maybe your child wants all of their teddy bears lined up from smallest to biggest before leaving for school.
That alone doesn't necessarily mean anything is wrong.
Maybe they simply like their bears that way.
In my own family, my son loves his Lion King figures and may want to play with them in a very specific way. If I suddenly decide that another character should wander into the game, he might not like my idea.
That's normal.
As parents, we have to be careful not to over-pathologize.
Over-pathologizing means looking at something that could be part of normal behavior, temperament, or development and immediately deciding that it must be a disorder.
One of the reasons I love having experts on parenting podcasts is that we can have these more nuanced conversations. Not every challenging behavior is a diagnosis.
The question is what happens when we gently introduce flexibility.
What Happens When You Change the Routine?
Dr. Brandt suggested that parents who are unsure about a behavior can sometimes gently play with the routine and see how their child responds.
Take the stuffed animal example.
Dr. Brandt's daughter wanted only bunnies on her bed leading up to Easter.
He started sneaking other animals onto the bed.
At first, she didn't particularly like it. But after a few days, they were able to turn it into a game.
Soon she was asking where the new animal was.
That ability to become flexible is important.
A child might say:
“I don't like that.”
“I want to do it my way.”
“Can we do that tomorrow instead?”
They may even become annoyed.
But there's room to move.
With OCD, Dr. Brandt explained, parents may see a much more significant break when the ritual changes.
The child may become genuinely scared.
They may say:
“It doesn't feel right.”
“Something bad will happen.”
“I can't do that.”
The issue isn't simply that the child prefers option A.
It's that changing from option A feels frightening or intolerable.
Preference and Fear Are Different
This distinction came up repeatedly in my conversation with Dr. Chad Brandt.
There's a difference between:
I like it this way.
and:
I'm scared of what will happen if I don't do it this way.
Younger children may not be able to explain exactly what they're afraid of.
They might simply say:
“It feels bad.”
“It makes me worried.”
“Something bad might happen.”
Older children may be able to articulate a more specific fear.
For example, they might worry that something terrible will happen to Mom or Dad if they don't complete a ritual correctly.
That fear component is one of the things parents should pay attention to when trying to distinguish ordinary repetitive behavior from something that warrants further evaluation.
Parents Can Accidentally Become Part of the Ritual
This is where things can become especially difficult for parents.
OCD doesn't necessarily stay contained within the child's behavior.
Parents can get pulled into it.
Imagine your child has a bedtime routine.
Mom says good night three times.
Dad gives two kisses.
One stuffed animal gets kissed.
Then another stuffed animal gets kissed.
At first, it might seem cute.
Lots of kids have bedtime rituals.
But then the ritual starts expanding.
“Mommy, that didn't feel right. Say good night three more times.”
“Daddy, kiss me again.”
“Now kiss the bunny.”
“Now do it again.”
Something that started as a quirky bedtime routine can begin consuming more and more of everyone's time.
Dr. Brandt explained that OCD can consume the child's time first and then begin consuming the parents' time.
That's an important distinction.
When Helping Starts Feeding the Anxiety
As parents, we're wired to respond when our children are scared.
We want to reassure them.
We want to make things better.
If saying good night one more time makes your child feel safe, why wouldn't you do it?
That's exactly what makes this dynamic so difficult.
You may genuinely believe you're helping.
But Dr. Brandt explained that when OCD is driving the request, repeatedly accommodating it can feed the cycle.
Your child says they're scared.
You do the ritual.
Their anxiety comes down.
The OCD learns that the ritual was necessary.
Then the next time the fear appears, the ritual becomes even more important.
This is one of those areas of parenting and child development where the most loving response in the moment may not always be the response that helps a child build skills over time.
Children Need Opportunities to Experience Manageable Distress
A theme that comes up frequently when I talk with other child psychologists is the importance of allowing kids to experience healthy levels of distress.
That doesn't mean abandoning them.
It doesn't mean being cold.
And it doesn't mean leaving a child alone with something they genuinely cannot handle.
It means giving children space to struggle while providing a safety net.
Dr. Brandt described it beautifully as communicating:
“I love you.”
“I trust you.”
“I believe in you.”
“And you can struggle for a little bit.”
That's a very different message from immediately removing every uncomfortable feeling.
Doing hard things successfully is one of the ways children build confidence.
This is also one of the parenting and child development principles that can feel counterintuitive in a culture where parents often receive the message that distress itself is harmful.
Healthy, manageable distress is not the same thing as harm.
What This Can Look Like With an OCD Ritual
Imagine your child believes you have to say good night seven times.
You could acknowledge that they want the ritual while beginning to change your participation in it.
Maybe you say good night six times instead.
You can still be warm.
You can still tell them you love them.
You can still acknowledge that it's difficult.
But you're also communicating that you're not going to do exactly what the fear says must happen.
Your child may become upset.
And that's incredibly hard to watch.
But the goal isn't to guarantee that your child never experiences anxiety.
The goal is to help them learn that they can experience discomfort and move forward.
This is one reason parents who suspect OCD in children can benefit from working with someone who understands OCD specifically. The details of how and when to change accommodations matter, and an expert can help guide that process.
Three Signs Parents Should Pay Attention To
I asked Dr. Chad Brandt for three things that might tell a parent it's time to get an evaluation.
His answers centered around uncertainty, outsized reactions, and what he calls “magical” thinking.
1. Your Child Can't Tolerate Uncertainty
Dr. Brandt described OCD as, in one sense, a “phobia of uncertainty.”
A child without OCD may prefer something a certain way but still be able to experiment with changing it.
A child struggling with OCD may become stuck on:
“But what if something bad happens?”
They don't know what will happen if the routine changes, and that uncertainty feels intolerable.
That can make them insist the ritual must happen exactly as expected.
2. Changing the Behavior Produces an Outsized Anxious Reaction
Imagine a child who likes shooting baskets until they make the final shot.
Lots of kids do things like this.
You tell them dinner is ready.
They want one more shot.
You tell them it's time to come inside.
They might huff.
They might complain.
They may be disappointed.
But they can stop.
Now imagine that stopping produces an enormous reaction.
The child becomes terrified or has a major meltdown.
When you explore what's underneath that reaction, you discover they're afraid that if they don't make the final basket, they'll miss every shot during their game this weekend.
Now we're looking at something different.
The intensity and the fear underneath the repetitive behavior matter.
3. The Fear Becomes “Magical”
This was one of the clearest distinctions Dr. Brandt gave.
Wanting to make your last basketball shot because making baskets feels good makes sense.
Wanting to make it because you have a basketball game this weekend still has a logical connection.
But what if the child believes they have to make the basket so Dad doesn't get into a car accident tomorrow?
Now the action and feared consequence aren't logically connected.
Or maybe the child believes they must perform a ritual so Grandma stays alive.
Dr. Brandt describes that as becoming “magical.”
When you start seeing these kinds of fear-based connections, that's a reason to consider getting an expert evaluation.
An Evaluation Doesn't Automatically Mean Your Child Has OCD
This is important.
Seeing one unusual behavior doesn't allow us to diagnose a child.
Maybe they were having a terrible day.
Maybe something they saw frightened them.
Maybe they're angry because you've never previously enforced a particular limit.
Maybe the behavior passes.
The point of an evaluation isn't to decide in advance that your child has OCD.
It's to have someone with appropriate expertise help differentiate what you're seeing.
Is this normal developmental behavior?
Is this anxiety?
Is this a limit-setting problem?
Could this be OCD?
Those distinctions matter because different problems require different responses.
Look for Someone Who Actually Treats OCD
If you're concerned about OCD in children, Dr. Brandt and I both emphasized the importance of finding a clinician with specific OCD expertise.
Not every therapist who lists OCD on a website necessarily has specialized training in treating it.
Dr. Brandt recommends looking for someone trained in exposure and response prevention, commonly called ERP.
He also mentioned the International OCD Foundation as a resource parents can use to learn more about OCD and search for clinicians.
When you're speaking with a potential therapist, ask what treatment modality they use for OCD.
You don't have to be embarrassed about asking.
You are allowed to understand what kind of treatment your child will receive.
What Is Exposure and Response Prevention?
Dr. Brandt described exposure and response prevention as the gold-standard treatment for OCD.
The concept has two pieces.
First comes exposure.
The child gradually faces something that triggers the uncertainty, fear, or discomfort.
Then comes response prevention.
They practice not performing the compulsion they would normally use to make themselves feel better.
For example, imagine a child who is afraid of germs.
An exposure might involve touching something they consider dirty.
Then, instead of immediately washing their hands, they move on to another activity.
The lesson isn't:
Nothing bad will ever happen.
The lesson is closer to:
I can feel uncomfortable and still move forward.
That is a powerful skill.
Parents May Be a Big Part of Treatment
One of the most encouraging things Dr. Chad Brandt shared is that treatment doesn't always mean putting a young child in a room with a therapist and expecting them to solve the problem alone.
Sometimes his work focuses heavily on the parents.
He may teach parents the language and tools they need to respond differently at home.
In some cases, he may work with parents without meeting the child at all.
That makes sense when we think about how OCD can recruit an entire family into its rituals.
If parents are being asked to provide reassurance, repeat phrases, complete bedtime rituals, or help the child avoid uncertainty, changing the parents' responses can become an important part of changing the cycle.
Effective Treatment Exists
I really want parents to hear this part.
If your child is struggling, there is hope.
In our conversation, Dr. Brandt emphasized that OCD can become increasingly debilitating without treatment, which is why getting an evaluation when you're concerned matters.
But he also emphasized that treatment can be very effective.
I see a similar fear when families receive diagnoses involving anxiety or behavioral disorders. Parents sometimes hear the name of a disorder and immediately imagine that this is simply who their child will be forever.
A diagnosis describes symptoms.
It can also point us toward the treatment that has evidence behind it.
That's why conversations like this belong on parenting podcasts. Parents need more than frightening labels or oversimplified social media advice. We need practical information that helps us understand when something deserves attention and what evidence-based support can look like.
You Don't Have to Diagnose Your Child Yourself
If your child likes their stuffed animals lined up perfectly, you don't need to panic.
If they want the bedtime routine performed in a certain order, that doesn't automatically mean they have OCD.
If they like repeating something, that repetitive behavior by itself doesn't tell us enough.
Instead, get curious.
Can they tolerate flexibility?
What happens if the routine changes?
Is there fear underneath the behavior?
Does your child believe something bad will happen if they don't complete it?
Is the behavior consuming significant amounts of their time?
Is it interfering with school, play, sleep, family life, or other parts of daily functioning?
And are you becoming increasingly involved in completing the ritual for them?
If the answers start making you wonder whether this could be more than a preference or personality quirk, you don't have to figure it out alone.
Talk with someone who specializes in OCD and can help you understand what you're seeing.
That's one of my biggest takeaways from this conversation with Dr. Chad Brandt.
Good parenting and child development information shouldn't make us afraid of every unusual thing our children do. It should help us know what deserves our attention, what questions to ask, and when to bring in someone with the expertise to help.
And that's exactly what I hope conversations like this one add to the world of parenting podcasts.
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
International OCD Foundation Website
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[00:00:00] Leah Clionsky: Welcome to the Educated Parent Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Leah Clionsky, and I am so excited to talk about those times where we aren't sure whether we're seeing a challenging behavior or whether we're seeing something that is actually potentially obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD. Sometimes when our kids are acting up, we don't know exactly why, and that's why I brought Dr.
[00:00:29] Leah Clionsky: Chad Brant on the show. You're listening to Educated Parent, the parenting podcast where I teach you realistic expert parenting hacks to solve your everyday parenting problems so that you can reduce your stress, build your confidence as a parent, and raise thriving children. My name is Dr. Leah Clionsky, and I'm a licensed clinical psychologist, owner of Thriving Child Center, and PCIT experts child psychology practices, and a real-life parent of two young children.
[00:01:02] Leah Clionsky: I am the same as you. I am invested in being the best parent possible and raising thriving children. I also get overwhelmed, I make mistakes, and I forget what works. I do have three unique parenting advantages that you may not have: a PhD in child clinical psychology, over 15 years of clinical experience working with families, and a network of other experts that I can text for parenting advice whenever I'm lost.
[00:01:29] Leah Clionsky: I'm here to bring my expertise and my expert network to you so that we can solve your everyday parenting dilemmas together. I am so glad you're here.
[00:01:43] Leah Clionsky: So Dr. Brant is a psychologist. He trained in the Bergen 4-Day treatment for OCD, and he's been operating his own practice specializing in full-day intensive treatment sessions since 2020. He's helped dozens of families of young children and adolescents move on from the confines of severe OCD symptoms. So he's the guy to see if your kids are really struggling with OCD and it's making it so they can't live their lives.
[00:02:09] Leah Clionsky: So that's why he's the perfect person to discuss this topic. Thank you so much for being on the show, Dr. Chad.
[00:02:15] Dr. Chad Brandt: Hi, Leah. Thank you very much for having me.
[00:02:17] Leah Clionsky: Yeah, this is so exciting. Um, I think that OCD has an interesting title in our culture. You know, we say things about people like, "Oh, they- they're so OCD that, you know, I can't even go into their house," or, "I'm so OCD," or they're-- "My cat's so OCD."
[00:02:35] Leah Clionsky: And I don't think anyone knows- What OCD actually means, and so I was hoping you could share that with us.
[00:02:42] Dr. Chad Brandt: Absolutely. Happy to start there. So OCD stands for obsessive compulsive disorder. So the O in obsession means a thought that comes back repeatedly that we don't like, that we try to get rid of, uh, usually taboo in nature in some form or fashion.
[00:02:57] Dr. Chad Brandt: The C stands for compulsion. That's the thing we do to get the thought to go away. And the D stands for disorder, which means it impacts your daily functioning basically. So OCD, thoughts that come up that you don't like, you do something to fix them, and that something you're doing is taking up a lot of time.
[00:03:11] Dr. Chad Brandt: That is different than just liking things a certain way. My wife likes her closet organized like a rainbow, and that's fine. Good for her. Happy to do it. She puts her closet away, it takes up 10 extra seconds of her day, and she moves on with her life. My closet's an explosion. It costs me 10 seconds every day, but that's not really, that doesn't really matter one way or the other.
[00:03:32] Dr. Chad Brandt: OCD will take up minutes, hours, days, weeks, months of time, and it's always a fear-based disorder. So I like to give an example for young families. Kids like things a certain way. Kids like routine. Kids like consistency. Kids like structure, right? And your child might like his teddy bears lined up particularly from smallest to biggest on his bed when he leaves for school every day.
[00:03:53] Dr. Chad Brandt: That would be just fine. He says he likes the small ones in the front. Who cares? It would start to become a problem if he started to take extra time, and I have to organize them just right, and I have to turn them a certain way, so on and so forth. Now, if your kid does that and can break from it, or if you can switch the teddy bears around and he doesn't notice, or you can make a game out of it and he thinks it's fun, that's just fine.
[00:04:12] Dr. Chad Brandt: What you'll notice is if you take a kid who maybe has some OCD and you switch two of the teddy bears, or you tell him he has to leave the room quicker without perfecting them, he will get scared usually. And he might say, "It doesn't feel right. I feel, I will feel wrong all day. If the teddy bears aren't right, something bad will happen."
[00:04:27] Dr. Chad Brandt: That would be the obsession, some type of fear in there. The compulsion would then be getting the teddy bears just right. And eventually, if it's allowed to grow and it is OCD, that will take up more and more time in the morning. The kid will be late for school. You'll be yelling. They'll be crying.
[00:04:41] Dr. Chad Brandt: Everything will be a disaster. And then you look at, uh, OCD versus just kind of little kids liking things a certain way.
[00:04:47] Leah Clionsky: I can see why that's really hard, though, for parents to understand because people do prefer things to be a certain way. You know, like Yeah, like my son loves, uh, like his little Lion King figures, and he wants to play with them a certain way.
[00:05:00] Leah Clionsky: And, you know, he can get mad if you want to shift the game into something else. And so, like, looking at that behavior, you know, it could be very easy to over-pathologize. What over-pathologize means, for the audience, is when you diagnose something as disordered when it's not. It's just how people are, right?
[00:05:19] Leah Clionsky: So it could be easy to say, "Whoa, this is OCD, and now I'm freaking out about this." Or it could be easy to, like, for there to be really an impairing problem, and then for us to dismiss it. And I think that is one of the hard things about being a parent in general is figuring out, is this serious enough for me to worry about, or is this just, like, somebody's individual personality quirk or maybe something cute about them?
[00:05:44] Dr. Chad Brandt: Um, Moana, and the little pig from Moana, I forget his name right now, he wants to wander in and be friends with Pumbaa. And ideally, your child's able to say, "Oh boy, we can add a new, new friend. This is fun. Let's do it." Or they might be able to say, "No, Mommy, I don't like that today. Maybe tomorrow." Or you can say, "Okay, we won't involve the pig today.
[00:06:02] Dr. Chad Brandt: Maybe tomorrow." There'll, there'll be some flexibility even if you have to work a little bit at it. And again, where you would see OCD as, like, a big, big break, a big shift, a big meltdown, "No, no, no. It's not right. It can't be that way. He lives over here. No, no," tears, right, worries, fears coming out of that would be one of the ways to differentiate it.
[00:06:20] Dr. Chad Brandt: My daughter, leading up to Easter, wanted only bunnies in her bed. And my, my daughter does many things like that. And I do over-pathologize all of my three children with all things all the time because I'm a psychologist. And so I was sneaking extra animals onto the bed, you know, every night just to see, just to poke at her a little bit.
[00:06:37] Dr. Chad Brandt: Um, and she didn't like it very much until two or three days in. We made it a game, and it was hide the new creature. And, and, and, and after two or three days it was fun, and she said, you know, "Daddy, where's the chicken?" And we could add, we could expand, it turned into a game. That to me is not OCD. That's just fun.
[00:06:52] Dr. Chad Brandt: That's kids liking things a certain way and you teaching a little bit of flexibility. Very different than the, the meltdowns or the anger um, that you might see.
[00:06:59] Leah Clionsky: Right. There's a difference between liking something and feeling actually scared if that thing doesn't happen. Like, the- that's a totally different level of reaction.
[00:07:09] Leah Clionsky: It's like, "I prefer it" versus, like, "Now I'm terrified that Mom and Dad will die because there are not just bunnies on my bed."
[00:07:17] Dr. Chad Brandt: Yes. No, that's exactly right, and if you probe a little bit, little- the littler the kids are, it's, it's harder sometimes to get at the thoughts going on in there. But you will hear something like s- "I'm afraid something bad will happen."
[00:07:28] Dr. Chad Brandt: And sometimes the older kids might be able to say, you know, "You'll die, Daddy, on your way to work," in the car. Okay, we can work with that. Little guys, my daughter's five, y- you might just say, "This feels bad," or, "It makes me worried if something bad might happen." And, and when you get into those fears or those nonsensical fears, that's when you'd wanna kinda take your next layer of exploration, reach out to a professional.
[00:07:48] Leah Clionsky: Yeah. I also know, too, for OCD that parents get really involved sometimes in the rituals the kids do. Can you give some examples of, like, how you might get sucked into your kid's ritual without even knowing it until it's kind of too late?
[00:08:03] Dr. Chad Brandt: I can give you so many examples. I will say the way I measure severity of OCD is in time consumed So I might have one patient that is sitting and thinking 12 hours a day.
[00:08:13] Dr. Chad Brandt: That's a very severe case. That's a lot of time consumed. They can't focus. They can't learn math. They're not playing on the playground, right? I might have another kid that washes his hands really aggressively 30 minutes a day. That second kid is gonna have more physical symptoms. Their hands are gonna be raw.
[00:08:25] Dr. Chad Brandt: They're gonna hurt, right? They're- it's gonna be noticeable for them to be washing, and you might think that's a more severe case. It's not in my mind. The time consumed on that first kid is more severe. So what OCD will do is it'll consume the time of the individual that has it. It'll consume the child's time, and once it has enough of the child's time, it'll go for your time.
[00:08:43] Dr. Chad Brandt: It'll go for the parent's time. Right? "Mommy has to say good night to me in exactly this way, and then Daddy has to come in, and he has to kiss me here, and he has to kiss the ba- the bunny there," and da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. And every night, Mommy has to say good night three times, and Daddy has to do two kisses.
[00:08:57] Dr. Chad Brandt: And that might go on for a week, and then you'll see a, "And then, Mommy, that didn't feel right. Say good night three more times. Daddy, kiss me and then kiss my chicken and then kiss the bunny." Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. You'll see it just kind of slowly grow. And something that starts out kind of fun or kind of quirky, you know, we got this little nighttime ritual.
[00:09:12] Dr. Chad Brandt: All kids have little nighttime rituals. When it starts to expand, when it starts to get frustrating, when it takes up too much time, or again, when you try to break it, if the kid freaks out, right? That would be a sign. So, like, nighttime rituals for younger kids, I see all the time, ones that are just growing.
[00:09:28] Dr. Chad Brandt: Any kind of repetitive task: eating, uh, stabbing things with a fork, chewing a certain number of times, praying a certain number of times if that's what your family does. You know, washing your hands before or after meals, before or after using the bathroom. You want your kids to do that. Golly, I wish my boys would do that more consistently.
[00:09:46] Dr. Chad Brandt: Um, but if they do it too long, multiple times, if they do the exact same thing, if you hear them counting, all of those things would be trigger points. Anything with numbers. My, my kids like numbers. They like to do things a certain number of times. They like counting. They're mathy kids. But if you see a kid flipping a light switch on and off a certain number of times, walking through a doorway a certain number of times.
[00:10:04] Dr. Chad Brandt: Anything that where they really get stuck and you can see them repeating, that tends to be worrisome. That tends to indicate something's going on.
[00:10:12] Leah Clionsky: Yeah, I know what's so hard about being a parent in general is that you want to, like, make your kids happy, right? Like, you want to accommodate. Like, you're like, "Sure, you can have, you know, good night three times."
[00:10:23] Leah Clionsky: Like, "I love you, and I want you to feel good and secure." And, and by Instagram does a really good job, by the way, of making it seem like you're abusive if you don't do exactly what your kids want all the time. Like, they will be traumatized later, and they will have attachment wounds. I feel like how Instagram will phrase it.
[00:10:42] Dr. Chad Brandt: You know? Yes, yes, yes. You have to say I love you 79,000 times if they want it, right?
[00:10:47] Leah Clionsky: Right. One time I didn't say I love you the thousandth time, and they were deeply traumatized forever. So, like, Instagram will make you think that. So you think you're helping, right? You think you are giving your child secure attachment- And then you are accidentally making things worse, and figuring that out later, it's so hard to as a parent when you think you're doing something that's useful, and then you find out you have actually become part of the problem And then you have to change what you were originally doing.
[00:11:18] Leah Clionsky: I think that's one of the agonizing things about being a parent is you sometimes just don't know whether you are part of the problem or the solution, and sometimes you don't find out for a really long time. And it's funny what you can end up doing for a child. I have some funny bedtime rituals I did for my daughter that didn't, did not involve OCD, just involved being bad at sleeping as an as an infant, you know, and my desperation.
[00:11:42] Leah Clionsky: Like, they definitely took up a lot of my time, so it's interesting kinda looking back and trying to figure it out.
[00:11:47] Dr. Chad Brandt: Yeah. It, it really is. And the way that I tend to think about a lot of parenting issues is you want to give them the space. You wanna give them the space to struggle. You wanna give them the space to fail.
[00:12:00] Dr. Chad Brandt: You wanna give them the space to, to figure it out with a safety net underneath. So, like right before we even got on this call, my, my oldest son sprained his ankle at school. He's downstairs. We have him set up. He's got his little Tylenol. He's got his little ice pack on. He's watching TV. I told him I'm up here.
[00:12:15] Dr. Chad Brandt: He's okay, right? He's not bleeding. It's not swollen out of his shoe. He's okay, right? So there's some space there, and I know he would, to some degree, want me sitting with him, and I did for a bit, and now I'm done, and Daddy's available, and so on and so on and so forth. And I, I'll think about OCD in that same way sometimes.
[00:12:29] Dr. Chad Brandt: "I know you want seven good nights. I do love you. I would love nothing more than to give you 7,000 good nights, but I am a person too, and I need sleep, and you need sleep. We're gonna be grumpy tomorrow if we don't sleep, so I'm giving you six good nights tonight, and that's what I'm doing no matter what.
[00:12:43] Dr. Chad Brandt: I'm w- I love you. I know you're tough. I know you can handle it. Love you, I love you, love you," whatever, six times, and then you walk out of the room. You can start to let them struggle a, a, a little bit. There's a lot of love, and there's a lot of support, and there's still, "And we're not doing it exactly the way your brain says you have to have it."
[00:12:57] Dr. Chad Brandt: That's a lot of the work with little kids. How do we, how do we push them without being mean? How do we push them in a way where they feel empowered versus abandoned? Because when you've done good night routines for however many years, and all of a sudden you have to change it up, it can be hard for the little guys.
[00:13:13] Leah Clionsky: Yeah. It's funny. It's-- When I talk to a child psychologist specifically or, like, hang out with my child psychologist friends, we talk about parenting. So much of our conversations are about, like, setting limits and letting kids experience healthy levels of distress without fixing their problems for them, and it's such a different viewpoint, I think, than a lot of parents have.
[00:13:33] Leah Clionsky: But it's because we know that over, over-coddling, you know, not being genuine, supportive, and validating, but over-coddling breeds anxiety. It feeds OCD and anxiety disorders, and it leads to, like, really challenging relationships with your kids. And so we-- I feel like we as a group tend to be more into, "It's okay for your kid to have a tough moment, you know, as long as you're there and supportive and a good parent overall."
[00:13:59] Leah Clionsky: And I think that's how we are almost differentiated sometimes from the culture.
[00:14:03] Dr. Chad Brandt: Yes, and it's, and it's interesting 'cause it does feel mean maybe sometimes to, to hear it from the outside, but it's really not. There's, "I love you. I trust you," is what I say a lot. "I believe in you." And you can struggle for a bit.
[00:14:14] Dr. Chad Brandt: I'm here if you need me. And they figure it out, and you can tell them they're great. And, and now you've got some real concrete evidence that you're great, right? You did something hard. I'm really proud of you. Instead of you're just great for existing, which they are, sure, but there's a, there's something you did.
[00:14:27] Dr. Chad Brandt: There's a struggle you worked through. That can be really helpful.
[00:14:29] Leah Clionsky: Yeah. Well, doing hard things successfully is what builds confidence. Not, again, not mean things, not like w- you're, you're desperately injured. You've twisted your ankle. I'm gonna leave you on the driveway to cry, right? Totally different.
[00:14:42] Dr. Chad Brandt: Crawl inside when you're better. Yeah.
[00:14:44] Leah Clionsky: Yeah, yeah. You can crawl your way in. It's not like that, but it's saying that I trust you. Like, I believe you can hang out for 30 minutes as a 10-year-old while I do something else, and then I'm gonna be so proud of you, and you're gonna know you're capable. That is a different kind of parenting.
[00:15:00] Dr. Chad Brandt: Yes. And it, and, and to bring it back into OCD, that's what OCD will kind of pull away. Um, and, and, and the kid will start to say, you know, "I, I can't," or, "I'm, I'm scared." Um, and when you hear your kid say you're scared, you've got this natural instinct, right? To, to run in there, to jump, to fix, you know, to control, to tell them it's okay.
[00:15:18] Dr. Chad Brandt: Um, and OCD just loves that. OCD just eats that up. OCD just feeds and feeds and feeds off of this. You get into these cycles as a parent where you're doing all these things, and you kind of in the back of your mind know it's, it's, it's abnormal, or it's not right, or it's not helping. But the second you try to back off, the kid's in tears saying, "I'm so scared.
[00:15:33] Dr. Chad Brandt: I'm so scared." What are you supposed to do?
[00:15:35] Leah Clionsky: Yeah. It's a, it's a really good trap. It's a, just sucks you right in along with your child, and you're the only one who can pull out of it when you have a young kid. It has to come from parents.
[00:15:45] Dr. Chad Brandt: Yes. It's a lot of parent training.
[00:15:47] Leah Clionsky: So if we were to give parents three quick signs to say to them, "Hey, this is concerning enough where you should actually get an evaluation to see if OCD could be part of what's going on," what would be your top three things that parents would know, "Okay," like, "I'm worried enough where this is going to cause me to get an expert to tell me what's going on"?
[00:16:11] Dr. Chad Brandt: I should call someone. Yes. So I will start by outlining how I think about OCD, and that will lead me into those three things. So I will think about OCD personally when I get a case. I will think of it as, like, a phobia of uncertainty. I- I- is one of the ways that I'll think about OCD, especially in kids.
[00:16:30] Dr. Chad Brandt: You get a little bit older, you get that kind of phobia of thoughts stuff going on, all these terrible intrusive thoughts. If you're dealing with a six, eight, 10-year-old, usually they're not having those, those terrible thoughts. They haven't been exposed to enough. Sometimes they do. Not, not super frequently.
[00:16:42] Dr. Chad Brandt: But if you think of them as, like, a phobia of uncertainty, that would be your, your, your pushing point there. So when I mentioned, like, changing a game, changing a routine, and if my daughter wants all bunnies and I put a pig on the bed, um, she might just say, "I don't like that," or, "I don't want pigs today," or something like that.
[00:17:00] Dr. Chad Brandt: And, and if I can say, "Well, let's have a pig tomorrow," or, "Let's put the pig on the bed and see if they're friends," or, "Let's have the pig on here for five minutes, and then I'll take him off," usually she's able, a non-OCD kid is able to say, "Oh, okay. I can do that. That sounds like fun. I'll test this out with you," right?
[00:17:14] Dr. Chad Brandt: And they'll roll with it. You'll hear language from a kid with OCD that says, "I, I can't tolerate that. I don't know what will happen," right? What if da, da, da, da, da, da, da. What if something bad happens? What if, what if somebody gets hurt? What if the pig hurts the sheep? I don't know. It could be anything going on there.
[00:17:28] Dr. Chad Brandt: But you'll hear this, this uncertainty intolerance going on. "I don't know what will happen if you do that, and therefore I won't allow it," right? "Mommy, I don't know what will happen if you don't say good night seven times, so you have to say good night seven times." You got an uncertainty there. So step one, or one of the ways to probe there would be to push on them a little bit.
[00:17:46] Dr. Chad Brandt: Let's try to mix it up, um, and just see how they react. If they can make a game out of it, if they can do it even the next day, that's fine. If they get real stuck on, "But what if something bad happens," you've got, you have got a problem there. The second way you could tell the difference, um, would be the kids saying they like it versus the kids saying they don't like it.
[00:18:04] Dr. Chad Brandt: My middle son, I'll keep using my kids as examples, um, loves to play basketball. He goes outside and he shoots basketballs all the time, right? And he likes to have his last shot be a make. Now, he's eight, and he likes to shoot the big ball in the big hoop so that's, many of the shots don't go in. And I'll tell him, "You have one minute for dinner, and then you have to come in."
[00:18:21] Dr. Chad Brandt: And I'll give him his time, and if I come back a minute later and he says, "I haven't made a shot," and I say, "Well, I'm sorry, buddy. You still gotta come inside. I told you a minute. It's dinner time," he should be able to come inside. He might not like it. He might drop the ball and kind of huff and puff and go inside, but he can do it.
[00:18:34] Dr. Chad Brandt: Now, if he were to have a total meltdown Right? Or if I were to grab him or take the ball and say, "Okay, it's dinner time. Come on inside," and he were to just scream and yell, just this way oversized reaction to that not rightness, to that uncertainty, that would be a warning sign there, too. Every kid wants to finish the game how they want to finish, and they should be able to break it however you say with enough warning.
[00:18:55] Dr. Chad Brandt: Um, so that would be a warning sign, too. If you break it up, if you get these outsized anxious reactions. Sometimes you'll see the anger. Usually there's anxiety under the anger. Why are you so angry? Well, because if I don't make this last shot, then I'll miss every shot in the game this weekend. Ah, okay. Uh, that's, that's a big scary outcome here that doesn't make a lot of sense.
[00:19:13] Dr. Chad Brandt: And so that would lead me actually into the third way you can differentiate. The thing that makes OCD different than worry is OCD gets magical at some point, and that is a technical term that I'll use all the time right there. To want to finish your last shot because you like making shots, that makes sense.
[00:19:28] Dr. Chad Brandt: All right, to want to finish your last shot because you got a game this weekend, that makes sense. To want to finish your last shot so that next weekend you do a good job, ooh, okay. That's, that's a little weird. That's a little magical. That's a little nonsensical. To want to finish this last shot so Daddy doesn't get in a car accident tomorrow, ooh, okay.
[00:19:44] Dr. Chad Brandt: That's a little magical, right? Your basketball doesn't impact my driving as far as I've ever seen anyway. Right? To want to make this last shot so that Grandma s- is, is, stays alive, so that God loves me tomorrow, any of those things, right, when you get magical, that would be, that would be a signal there that that's, that might be OCD.
[00:20:01] Leah Clionsky: Right. And then you want to get it evaluated because maybe they were just mad at you that day, right? Or maybe they saw something on TV, or, you know, maybe it's a passing, it's a passing idea, right? Because things are very uncertain right now, and it will go away. But if you're seeing those things and you're starting to wonder, it doesn't hurt to meet with an OCD expert and just have that differentiated so that there can be a more in-depth assessment.
[00:20:27] Leah Clionsky: You can figure out, like, hey, is this really OCD, or is this one of these things where you've never set a limit with your child? And so when you say that was the last minute and, and they're like, "I want more time to play basketball," they push back, and it has nothing to do with fear. So that's where it's helpful to just get those things differentiated, and you want to do it from someone who's actually an expert in OCD, someone who knows, um, exposure and response prevention, somebody who's really been trained in that modality.
[00:20:55] Leah Clionsky: Because it's important to know so that you can get treatment for something before it escalates.
[00:21:00] Dr. Chad Brandt: And so that's the way I've designed my entire practice is around treating severe cases of OCD because OCD can become so severe so quickly. It can impact so much, even in very young children. And when, when you have an inkling, a indication that OCD might be what's coming on, you do want to push on that and, and, and, and you want to get an evaluation for that.
[00:21:21] Dr. Chad Brandt: You want to get it worked on. The, the treatment can be very, very, very effective, can be helpful very quickly, and there's a lot of tools that we can give you as a parent to work on that. A lot of times I actually don't even work with the kids I, I'll just work with the parents and give them the language and them the tools to push on it.
[00:21:38] Dr. Chad Brandt: Sometimes I don't meet the kid at all. Um, but you do wanna, you do wanna push on that.
[00:21:43] Leah Clionsky: Yeah, I think that's such a helpful message though that's hopeful. Like anxiety disorders, very treatable with an evidence-based treatment. Behavioral disorders, very treatable with an evidence-based treatment. Like when people get an oppositional defiant disorder diagnosis and parents are so worried about it, I say, "Oh, don't worry.
[00:22:02] Leah Clionsky: This is just symptoms. We can absolutely treat this. This can go away." And so I think people often don't get effective treatment, and so they think that treatment doesn't work, but there are really effective evidence-based treatments, and you want the right thing If there's a problem, you wanna address it early before it gets worse.
[00:22:22] Dr. Chad Brandt: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, and, and I can talk about how to find that as well because there's, there's no overarching governing body of OCD therapists and, and anybody can put on their website they, they do OCD, right? So there's a couple ways that you can differentiate that, um, for, for parents that are worried. One is you can go to the International OCD Foundation website, www.iocdf.org.
[00:22:45] Dr. Chad Brandt: It's all about OCD signs and symptoms. They've got a find a therapist tool on there, um, nationally. So you can find somebody around you hopefully. Anybody that is listening to this can call me or shoot me an email. I'm a part of PSYPACT. I'm licensed in s- 40 some odd states. And, and even if you don't want to work with me, or I, I can't work with you or what have you, I, I'm pretty well-connected.
[00:23:05] Dr. Chad Brandt: I can probably point you in the right direction for somebody around you if you want. So those are two options people at home have. The third thing I'm gonna say is when you find a therapist and you get into therapy, and Leah, you mentioned this a minute ago, the therapy should be exposure and response prevention.
[00:23:19] Dr. Chad Brandt: That is the gold standard of treatment for OCD. There really is no other treatment that is going to be effective or nearly as effective as ERP. So exposure with response prevention is the gold standard of treatment for OCD. It's what you should find. Um, it is by far the most effective treatment for OCD.
[00:23:38] Dr. Chad Brandt: What exposure and response prevention, ERP, w- what it is is it's, uh, exercises direction in challenging the OCD exposure and then response prevention, not doing the thing that makes you feel better, right? So if I'm working with a kid, I will help them do their exposures. I would say, "Well, you're afraid of germs.
[00:23:55] Dr. Chad Brandt: Let's go outside. Let's touch some dirt. Let's do whatever. Let's throw a basketball around." Usually with a kid you wanna make it a little bit fun. There has to be a reason to do it, right? And then we're gonna go inside, and we're not gonna wash our hands. We're gonna play with our toys. We're gonna do something else.
[00:24:09] Dr. Chad Brandt: We're gonna push on the OCD. We're gonna send that message into ourselves that says we can be uncomfortable and we can move forward.
[00:24:15] Leah Clionsky: Yeah, this idea of we can be uncomfortable and we can move forward. So we're gonna have all of these links in the show notes in addition to that website that Dr. Brandt mentioned all about how you can look up therapists with actual training in ERP.
[00:24:29] Leah Clionsky: And it's also a good question to ask if you're meeting with someone and they say, "Oh, I help with OCD." You're like, "Tell me your treatment modality." And if they do not say ERP, then find a new therapist because you want someone who's really trained and certified in something that's gonna make things better for you.
[00:24:46] Leah Clionsky: All right. Dr. Brandt, I am so excited to have you on the show. I appreciate all of your thoughts and your wisdom so much. Thanks again for spending time with me on Educated Parent. If this episode helped you feel more confident in handling those parenting curveballs, hit follow so you never miss an episode.
[00:25:07] Leah Clionsky: Know a parent who's stuck in the endless cycle of conflicting advice? Send this their way because we all deserve parenting strategies we can actually trust. And hey, if you have a minute, leave a review. Your support helps other parents find real expert-backed solutions instead of just another opinion online.
[00:25:26] Leah Clionsky: One last quick reminder, this podcast offers general advice, but every family is different. The advice offered in this podcast is not medical advice and is not appropriate for every family. If you need personalized parenting support, connect with an experienced clinician at Thriving Child Center or PCIT experts.
[00:25:47] Leah Clionsky: That's it for today. Thanks for listening, and I'll talk to you next time