[DENISE517]

Originally Posted by chloeandj

I'm so sorry you're going through this. I hope her appt goes very well.

My 7 year old started having some tendencies a year ago. His isn't about handwashing though. He needs certain things to be just perfect. He gets real bad during stressful times, like starting 1st grade and stressful times during the year, then 2nd grade started and it was real bad for about 2 weeks. Where he wasn't going to sleep until very late because something was just not right in his bed. Or one of his stuffed animals ear wouldn't stay just as he put it. He has other things that keep him from getting certain things done quickly like brushing his teeth. The knob on the bathroom sink wiggles when you turn it off, so it has to be in just a certain position before he'll stop touching it... When i tell him to hurry up from brushing his teeth as we'll be late for school, he gets overly upset, so i try to be very careful about what I say.



Fortunately he is at an age where we can talk about it and rationalize things, and try to find solutions. He was calling it his "bad habit", i told him he has no bad habits. He just needs to use his brain to help him stop. That he can be in control of his body and what he does. I see him trying and he's always very proud when he has stopped himself. He also erases so much with his homework to get each letter just so. Last year, his teacher suggested we let him erase each thing only once then he has to move on to the next. This works out most of the time but occasionally he erases so much he puts tears in his paper and gets upset.

The good thing is that i see him improving all the time, i feel like most of his little quirks are just a phase at this point and I try to give him lots of opportunity to be in control of other things and decisions in his life so he's not so involved in controlling all these other little things.

That is so good that he is improving. I never knew OCD was such a problem in so many kids. I pray that I can learn all I can and make it better for Lexi too.