OCD, childhood anxiety and the problem of reassurance

One of the most common questions I get asked by parents regarding OCD and anxiety is how they can help their children – what are the dos and don’ts?

As parents, we want to do the best by our children and if we could, we would undoubtedly take all their fears and anxieties away. But what if told you that isn’t the best thing to do for their mental health? Anxiety and other difficult emotions are part of life and as parents who want to raise emotionally resilient children, we need to come from a position of instilling that difficult emotions are okay and can be tolerated and even, at times, welcomed.

So many of the children and teens I work with spend a lot of time seeking reassurance from their parents about their fears and worries and our natural response is often to provide that reassurance, to tell them that their feared scenario isn’t going to happen, that they are wonderful and have nothing to worry about to make them feel safe. However, providing reassurance actually often directly perpetuates anxiety in the long

term. By providing our children reassurance, they might get a temporary relief but usually the fear or worry comes back fairly quickly. They then learn that they have to keep seeking reassurance to make the anxiety go away – this cycle is exhausting for both the kid and the parent! Not only that, the kid never learns that they can manage/ tolerate the situation WITHOUT their parent’s input – this can also keep them feeling stuck and reliant on their parents and have a negative effect on their self-esteem.

It is for this reason that my number one piece of advice to parents of anxious children sounds counterintuitive: stop providing repeated reassurance to your kid.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t still respond with kindness and compassion. Something like ‘hmm, it sounds like your brain is being tricky today’ or ‘that sounds really stressful, I am here if you need a cuddle’ can be really helpful. If you feel comfortable doing so I always recommend normalising worries and intrusive thoughts, too. Something like ‘hmm my brain sometimes tells me silly things, too’.

In these responses you are sending the message that it’s okay to have tricky thoughts and you are not afraid of their anxiety and that anxiety, worry and intrusive thoughts are normal. Modelling this will hopefully help them feel less afraid, too.

If any of this resonates for you and your child, I recommend giving this a go. If you would like any further support for you and your child around anxiety, OCD, low mood or any other mental health challenges, don’t hesitate to get in touch – I’d love to meet you and your child to find out how I might be able to help!

Written by Clinical Psychologist Dr Tanya Godwin BSc (Hons), PGDip, MSc, DClinPsy.

You can find out more about Tanya’s training and experience here.

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