Understanding Your Role: What You Can and Can’t Do When Your Child Has OCD
AT Parenting Survival | Raising Kids with OCD & Anxiety
Natasha Daniels: Child Therapist, Child Anxiety and OCD Expert, Parenting Coach and Parent
4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 18 November 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As parents, we want to rescue our kids from anxiety and OCD—but the truth is, some things are not within our control. And when we spend our energy trying to fix what isn’t ours to fix, we burn out, lose connection with our child, and unintentionally strengthen OCD. In this episode, I break down the critical difference between what is your role and what isn’t, so you can stop spinning your wheels and start creating meaningful progress for your child.
You’ll Learn What You Can’t Do (No Matter How Hard You Try):
- You can’t force your child to stop compulsions that don’t involve you
- You can’t create motivation or force insight
- You can’t speed up their progress or prevent new OCD themes from emerging
- You can’t make them share every intrusive thought
Trying to control these things only leads to power struggles and frustration—for you and your child.
Then We Shift to What You Can Do (and Where True Power Lies):
- Educate yourself and recognize new OCD patterns early
- Understand co-occurring struggles that impact progress
- Identify how you may be unintentionally feeding OCD
- Learn how to systematically pull back from accommodations
- Set healthy boundaries so OCD doesn’t run your home
- Incentivize your child to do the work instead of doing it for them
- Determine where your child is in their journey—trust, skills, or treatment—and start there
You do have influence. You do have a role. And when you lean into the things you can control, that’s when your child’s growth begins.
👉 Want hands-on guidance through this process? Join the AT Parenting Community, where I support parents step-by-step in building a therapeutic home environment and empowering their kids to take their life back from OCD. Doors close on Thursday, Nov 20th, 2025.
***
This podcast episode is sponsored by NOCD. NOCD provides online OCD therapy in the US, UK, Australia and Canada. To schedule your free 15 minute consultation to see if NOCD is a right fit for you and your child, go to
https://go.treatmyocd.com/at_parenting
This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be used to replace the guidance of a qualified professional.
Parents, do you need more support?
🌸 Here’s are resources I offer parents 👇🏻❤️
Online classes for parents raising kids with anxiety and OCD:
https://atparentingsurvivalschool.com
Join the AT Parenting Community (A membership designed to support parents raising kids with anxiety or OCD):
https://atparentingcommunity.com
Take one of my FREE webinars:
www.Natashadaniels.com/webinars
Check out my books:
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the AT Parenting Survival Podcast, where you get help and guidance through the chaos of parenting a child with anxiety or OCD. |
| 0:11.9 | This show is for educational purposes and is not intended to replace the guidance of a qualified professional. |
| 0:18.4 | Here's your host, child therapist, Natasha Daniels. Well, hello there, |
| 0:23.2 | and welcome to another episode of the AT Parenting Survival Podcast. Today we're going to get |
| 0:28.3 | into what you can and what you cannot do to help your child when they have OCD. And I see this |
| 0:34.5 | happening in two different ways. I see parents who are trying to do something or control something that they have no control |
| 0:41.3 | or ability to change. |
| 0:43.2 | And so they're spinning their wheels, exhausting themselves when really they can't do it. |
| 0:49.0 | Or and or they put their hands up and they say, my child doesn't want to work on this. |
| 0:55.2 | And so there's nothing I can do until they're willing to go into therapy or use their skills. |
| 0:59.9 | And there is a lot that we can do as parents, regardless of whether our kids are able to work on |
| 1:06.7 | their OCD in that moment or in that year or in that chapter. |
| 1:11.9 | So I'm going to talk to you about what you objectively can and can't do to help your child |
| 1:17.1 | with OCD. |
| 1:18.1 | But before we jump into that, I do want to thank No CD for sponsoring this episode. |
| 1:22.9 | NoCD offers affordable, effective, convenient therapy, and they're available in the U.S. |
| 1:27.9 | and outside the U.S. |
| 1:29.5 | You can schedule your free 15-minute consultation to see if no CD is a right fit for you and your |
| 1:35.6 | child. |
| 1:36.5 | Just go to treat myoced.com. |
| 1:39.0 | That is treat myoced.com and I'll leave a link in the show notes as well. |
| 1:43.8 | We also have our doors to the AT parenting community, my member community, open until |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Natasha Daniels: Child Therapist, Child Anxiety and OCD Expert, Parenting Coach and Parent, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Natasha Daniels: Child Therapist, Child Anxiety and OCD Expert, Parenting Coach and Parent and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.