Obsessive-compulsive disorder in children and teens

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental health condition that causes your child to have repeated unwanted thoughts. To get rid of them, your child may do the same tasks over and over. Therapy can help your child learn to manage their thoughts and actions. Their doctor also may prescribe medicine to help with symptoms.

Symptoms of OCD often come and go over time. And they can change as a child gets older.

Symptoms include:

• Obsessions. These are unwanted thoughts, ideas, and impulses that your child has again and again. They get in the way of normal thoughts and cause anxiety or fear. Examples include:
  • A fear of harm to a family member or loved one.
  • A fear of getting dirty or infected.
  • Sexual thoughts.
• Compulsions. These are behaviors that your child repeats to try to control the obsessions and reduce anxiety. Examples include:
  • Washing or cleaning.
  • Checking that something has been done.
  • Moving items to keep them in a certain order.

The obsessions or compulsions usually take up more than 1 hour a day. They greatly interfere with your child's normal routine. They also affect social activities and relationships.

Sometimes children may understand that their obsessions and compulsions aren't real. But often they may not be sure.

Your doctor can check for OCD by talking with you and your child. The doctor will ask about your child's symptoms and past health. The doctor may also ask about any family members who have had similar symptoms. The doctor may also do a physical exam.

Doctors use medicines and counseling to treat OCD.

Antidepressant medicines are used most often. Antidepressants work differently for everyone. Your doctor will help find the medicine and dose that works best for your child.

Counseling for OCD includes a type of cognitive behavioral therapy. It's called exposure and response prevention. It slowly increases your child's contact with the thing that causes worries or false beliefs. This therapy can reduce symptoms over time.

Other therapy may also help your child learn to manage thoughts and actions. Your child may have one-on-one therapy, group therapy, and family-focused therapy. Family-focused therapy helps you learn how to help your child.

Treatment can make the symptoms less severe. But your child may still have some mild symptoms after treatment starts.

• Give your child's medicine exactly as prescribed. Call your doctor if you think your child is having a problem with a medicine.
• Make sure your child goes to counseling and follow-up appointments.
• Ask your child's therapist how you can help your child do homework or tasks that the therapist sends home.
• Involve family members and other loved ones in your child's treatment, especially if your doctor suggests that they go to therapy together.
• Help your child handle stress in these healthy ways.
  • Get regular exercise. This could be activities like walking, bike-riding, outdoor play, and sports.
  • Write or draw about the things that bother your child.
  • Talk, laugh, cry, and express anger when your child needs to.
  • Eat healthy foods. It helps to avoid caffeine. Coffee, energy drinks, some soda, and chocolate have caffeine. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children and teens not drink energy drinks.