Obsessive thoughts that stem from fears and anxieties

Obsessive thoughts are often linked with compulsive behaviour and are usually brought on by an intense fear or anxiety. 

You may wonder why I haven’t used the acronym OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). This is for two reasons:

• It ’s become a joking throwaway in the public mind, badly and insultingly misused. This does no one a favour – neither those who’ve developed a compulsion, nor those who’re merely passionate and involved in doing something properly (the usual targets of the joke).
• It’s a “disorder” listed in official psychiatric manuals, and this website aims to address issues before they get to that stage. There are many earlier signs that something is getting out of control, and this is where parents can be alert and prevent further problems.

Having mentioned that, it’s good to step back a moment and remember what the connection is between anxiety and obsessive thoughts, and between obsessive thoughts and compulsions.

Anxiety, obsessive thoughts, and compulsions – the link

Thoughts often jump into our heads – millions per hour – but obsessive thoughts are the ones that won’t go away. 

Children up to age 12 are adjusting to life all the time, but they have less power, so it's likely they'll worry about the future more than older children who have more autonomy.

If we back up for a moment: anxiety is future-based. Something bad will happen. 

And if these (negative) anxious thoughts make you really frightened and upset (because they usually involve the threat of something happening to you or someone else you love), they can keep returning, pushing into your head, and become obsessive thoughts. 

That’s when many people will invent something they have to do to stop this obsessive thought coming true. That action is a compulsion – something you’re compulsively forced to do.

The problem is obvious: this isn’t a long-term solution! The relief of having carried out the action is short-lived. The thought returns as frequently as before, and the action has to be repeated. 

This vicious circle is exhausting.

So the idea here is to catch the warning signs in your child early on and avoid the full-blown problem.

Let’s see what this might look like

The child who is anxious that the teacher will be angry if they forget something may start having obsessive thoughts about punishment. So they check their school bag when they get up, before breakfast, after breakfast, before leaving for school etc. This is compulsive behaviour. Because clearly, if they haven’t tipped it out and lost something, what was there is still there. The obsessive thought about punishment needs to be dealt with so that they learn to check just once (that’s reasonable) and go with the flow. Checking and rechecking is taking hours off their life and spoiling it.

The child who is anxious and frightened of getting dirt, soil, play dough or paint on their hands may refuse to do certain activities. They've become obsessed with the idea that dirt is dangerous and will contaminate them. So to avoid the danger, they may start making sure they have gloves in their pocket all the time, for if they meet up with something dirty. The "compulsion" is that of having to put the gloves on or even insisting on wearing them all the time. But messy things will wash off. So the obsessive thought is unrealistic and the obsession about the danger of dirt is ruining their enjoyment of life. The compulsion of needing to wear gloves will also make them vulnerable to bullying at school.

As you can see, inability to deal with the initial anxiety is at the root of the problem of obsessive thoughts – and any compulsion that goes with it.

So your child will need help to manage that anxiety as soon as you notice little things that warn you of a problem.

And that’s completely possible. You can help them. When a child is in therapy for obsessions and compulsions, the therapist will always expect parents to be involved in helping carry out exercises during the week. 

Why? Because parents are there at the moment they're needed.

So helping your child before things get desperate is obviously a task you’re totally suited to!

Why parents can help sort out obsessive thoughts when they first start

• You're with your child all the time when your child is not at school – a therapist has one hour a week.
• You'll notice little signs that all is not going well and deal with it early. Even before anyone else notices something is developing.
• You can make sure no one in the family supports the obsession, or the compulsive behaviour that can follow. How often we parents want to relieve anxiety by going along with the child! Unfortunately, that just prolongs it.
• You're in a good position to use ideas and images that your child will respond to. That’s important when you talk to your child about the anxiety that’s fuelling the obsessive thoughts – you need to keep your child on board, and you'll know those little things that will grab your child’s attention and cooperation.

One thing to note is that parents do not usually cause obsessive thoughts to start.

If you’ve taken over parenting a child who’s had an abusive start in life, that early life trauma may have caused some symptoms. But that won’t be your fault.

Occasionally, there seems to be a genetic vulnerability, but anxiety will still have caused it, not you.

Sometimes a lack of serotonin in the brain has been seen to cause obsessive thoughts – but that will still need a trigger to set it in motion.

Mostly, as I said earlier, obsessive thoughts stem from anxiety that’s gone into overdrive. And when your child can’t control their anxiety, they may start carrying out certain behaviours, compulsively, as I said, in the belief that this will cope with the problem.

The compulsive part can take on many different forms.

You'll have heard of people hand-washing compulsively in case they’ve been near dangerous germs that will get into their bodies – but it’s just as likely to be clicking fingers in a certain pattern to ward off the catastrophe. 

Or checking and triple-checking things, like we saw in the example, "just to make sure" something extreme will not happen to them.

Any behaviour of this kind can cause parents to be frustrated at the least, and feel helpless and trapped at the worst.

Carrying out a compulsive behaviour or ritual is tiring for your child. But they believe that the thought/fear they’re obsessed with will come true if they don’t. 

And they often think the compulsion will make the obsessive thought go away. OK, you can see it didn’t, but they are driven by the thought in their heads.

That’s what you have to help with. The thought in their heads.

So what can be done?

An example

Many children will prefer to draw than do clay or paints. Fine. That could be a preference. 

You take an interest in their drawings and don’t push the “dirtier” options.

Then you realise something else is happening: your child loves being in the fresh air but has always refused to help plant a seedling, or pick up conkers or fir cones. Hmm…

That night you notice they want you to squeeze out the toothpaste for them. Again. You remember you’ve been saying to them, “You’re old enough to do this for yourself” for months! And they always say, “No, I don’t like toothpaste.” You took it to mean they would prefer not to have to use it. But now you wonder...

OK, this is only an example, but it shows how you'll be alert and like a detective, rather than letting things slide or assuming they’ll get sorted on their own one day.

How might you start the conversation?

Decide when to tackle the subject – about paint, or gardening, or toothpaste or whatever.

Ask them (in a spirit of curiosity): “What do you think’s going to happen if you get this on your hands?”

If they say, “It’s horrible, yuk,” (which is side-stepping!), just continue with something like: “What do you think horrible yuk is going to do to you?”

They may claim it will get in their skin and make them ill. Or they’ll never be able to get it off.

According to how old your child it, you could discuss some facts about that thought – get some proof, challenge them to try with just a tiny amount on one finger. That sort of thing. That starts the desensitising of “dirt” plus a return to reality thinking.

If you can’t get a “thought” from a younger child, try something like this:

“Tell me what horrible yuk is like. Can you draw it to show me? I really want to understand, because you’re missing out on so much fun and you’re obviously worried about getting your hands dirty.”

If they draw it, comment on it without judgement. Show curiosity and interest. “That does look like horrible yuk. What do you think horrible yuk wants to do to your hands?” (Any question that allows your child to explain a bit more.)

You might also take a more devious route, dip your finger in the paint and say: “The feeling of the paint on my finger reminds me of dipping my finger into the cake mix left in the bowl when my mum made cakes. What do you think it would remind you of?”

Whatever route you take and whatever the topic, you’re playing detective here. 

Continuing our “dirt” example, you might find out this sort of thing:

It’s germs! … It’s going to get in my nails and make me ill … It’s like that dead frog we found in the garden…

The thing is, you’ll find out that the mess on their hands isn’t the problem. The problem is the “obsessive thought” that keeps popping up in your child’s head in relation to anything dirty: germs, ill, dead...

Once you have the information, you can start discussing facts with your child, gathering evidence as to whether the obsessive thought is true, and working on some strategies to see if you can creep steadily along the path to easing the fear.

This all depends on their age, of course. And you know your child best. 

There are loads of resources for tackling anxiety on most pages on this site. More are being added all the time.

You can also discuss how pointless it is to avoid sorting it out because it pops up again and again, and is not much fun for them!

One strategy to start solving the anxiety behind the obsessive thought

If your child is willing to try, go find my Stepping Stone Challenge and jot down some relevant and varied small tasks you think your child could tackle, relevant to their obsessive thought. 

That challenge (used with your own topic) allows your child lots of control and can be made fun with interesting tasks.

This works well with an "avoidance" sort of fear. "I fear it so I won't do it."

Another strategy that might help

This is the sort of diagram you can draw by hand with your child. (A worksheet is too like school.)

So have a look at the inner cycle of bad thought leading to a repetition of the cycle. Then, when you sit down with your child, you can gradually sketch it from scratch, letting your child add the comments as they go.

Your bits in black will remain the same, of course, but their starting “bad thought” (in blue here) will be whatever you've come up with in a conversation.

Show them how the cycle goes round and round. "We need to snap it open!"

You demonstrate the place to break the cycle – by challenging what they "usually do" and changing it a bit. Then follow round with a new outer circle, with your child filling in the bits as the experiment gets underway.

You can see it isn’t all solved at once. But it’s a step forward. The fictional child here will try using a paint brush, which risks getting paint on their hand. But it's not so big a step as finger painting, for instance. It's still a step up from outright refusal to take part.

The thing is, you’re catching this anxious thought before it gets out of hand. Any of the strategies on this website will help to reduce anxiety so it doesn’t become intrusive and overwhelming.

And regular discussions in the family about feelings and worries will also help prevent anything like this happening anyway!

And compulsions?

I’m hoping you will not meet these yet, if all goes to plan with altering your child’s obsessive thought – but if not, nip in the bud that tendency to repeat a compulsion if you think one is in danger of developing.

The chief thing to remember is to NOT allow any tapping or repeating actions – say, for five or ten minutes at first.

If your child has admitted to reciting numbers or a rhyme or something in their head, instead of tapping, then you need to distract them for the five or ten minutes so it can't happen.

During this time, your child will see that they actually can survive the anxiety. That the anxiety is not killing them. Nothing bad is happening to anyone.

And hopefully, eventually, that the compulsion is not necessary to ward off the unpleasant thing they fear and which keeps jumping into their head.

Why? Because you're also working at the same time on challenging that little obsessive thought before it gets out of hand.

This method feels cruel and can make you out to be the monster instead of the nurturer. But in the long run, it’s the only way through.

Remember, we’re catching this early. We’re not talking about a full-blown disorder. You’re being alert to your child developing one.

Because, left unchecked, it will grow and rule their life.

---

---

If you're the sort of parent who likes to read up on a topic, Katie Lear, an American therapist, has written just enough about OCD and pre-teen children in her blog post, to inform you – without burying you in so much medical stuff you wish you'd never bothered reading! Have a look?

---

Takeaway

• Children's obsessive thoughts are closely linked to their deep-seated fears and anxieties.
• Such thoughts can become overwhelming, leading to compulsive behaviors as a way to cope.
• Recognising and addressing these thoughts early is vital for effective management and can prevent escalation.
• Encouraging open communication, empathy, and practical exercises and tailored strategies can significantly help.
• Professional therapy, with a focus on cognitive-behavioral techniques, plays a key role in treatment. Parental involvement is also helpful to prevent parents accidentally encouraging the compulsions.

As ever, if you feel your child needs the help of a children's counsellor, please see my Help page where there's lots of advice on how to safely choose one. If you're concerned there may be a medical cause for your child's behaviour, do please consult your GP.

Sign up for the Anxious Child Help newsletter
Don't miss the latest additions. My monthly digest newsletter will list them for you. [PS Check your junk folder afterwards for the activation email!]

ALWAYS:

Trust your instincts,
use your judgement, protect the spirit
of your child