Very worried about 10-year-old's intrusive thoughts

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I posted this, then think I accidentally deleted it – not sure, sorry, am useless! So posting it again here:

I was wondering if anyone could offer any advice/thoughts/reassurance about a developing situation I have with my 10-year-old DS that is starting to really worry me. He is quite a sensitive child and has always had a bit of a disproportionate fear of getting into trouble (I must stress, although I am firm, I am certainly not an ogre; his dad and I are super loving parents so this fear of getting into trouble isn't coming from us being disciplinarians!!)

Recently, he has unfortunately started to become aware of swear words – he has a close friend who has a teenage brother, so I think things filter down from him in particular. The knowledge of these 'bad words' seems to really distress him and he has started to become more and more worried about accidentally saying one of these words at school, and what the consequences of that might be.

Things have really escalated this week, and he seems to be fixating on this issue to the point where this has become a loop of intrusive thoughts that he can't control and it's having a noticeable affect on his mental health. He is not his normal happy self, he seems subdued, and is constantly worrying and 'confessing' these thoughts to me. I have done a bit of reading up and see that this points to an anxiety disorder of some sort. To this end, I have contacted the school and reached out to an occupational therapist for advice.

In the meantime, I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this with a child of this sort of age? And if so, how did it resolve/what helped? I am very alarmed and very worried about him.

Hi, I would suggest CBT as a therapeutic intervention. It can be really helpful with intrusive thoughts. Alot of locations now have 'mental health support teams' in schools and they are trained in CBT. If not see if there local CBT providers through your local CAMHS and/or GP.

I'd light heartedly desensitise him to these swear words. First together write down the words on small pieces of paper and take turns reading them out and sorting in groups (similarity of meaning) or in order of what he finds rudest / most ridiculous or whatever.

Next challenge each other to say such a word out loud or say do you think that one would be valid on scrabble?

Explain that swear words do have a place, sometimes they afford a release of frustration, sometimes it's just light hearted banter.

You have to help him take the edge off these expressions.

Also do try and explore with him what is authority, what are rules, you could get an age approparote book about law for example. Read it together talk about society needing rules and laws and ask when is it a good idea to break rules say to help someone, save a life or because it's ethical. Explore the difference between what is ethical and what are rules.

Most importantly on all of this, is that he, your son has agency always and he needs to become aware that he is not passive recipient of rules and life happening to him but that he has the power and right do steer his life the way he choses. chosing requires a bit of thinking so encourage him to reflect but not overthink. good luck

Explain too the history of some of the expression for example basra, how its stems from time when women had no rights but nowadays children born out of wedlock are not anything to worry about. He needs to feel like he is in control so give him this control though knowledge awareness and agency. Ask him if it saved his mum's life would he say the word arsehole. So play act it out Stuff like that.

I actually think @Ilovelurchers has a valid point and it is not to blame you OP at all, we all have our ways, don't we? AT 10 you should be happy that your ds is becoming familiar with swear words as if he didn't he'd be mercilessly bullied in secondary school (or sooner, year 6). It's all part of growing up and he needs to be streetwise.

Many dc have experiences of intrusive thoughts, mine did and often they can be handled in the home.

Key thing is to give you child agency. Over his life. That don'ts mean they get to do whatever they want but they feel in control.

*bastard

Another useful book, in kid language.
Although desensitising the use of swear words is a good idea (exposure therapy), our experience was that other intrusive thoughts come along to take over.
Your DS needs ideas on how to ride his anxiety waves, and some practical tips on intrusive thoughts.

I don't rate this book at all, we had it and I threw it in the bin, it was more harmful than helpful imo and ime.

I obviously put it in the recycle but didn't want to donate to charity shop as I felt it would be very unhelpful to children. I'm sure you can do a preview on Amazon and decide if the writing is appropriate. I think not.

OK. We found it helpful. I guess all cases are different..

What in particular did you find harmful @msapple? Just checked Amazon and it’s highly rated there with a 4.7 average review.

The Breaking Free from OCD book helped my DS in his early teens. He also had therapy with an MBACP integrative counsellor who specialised in working with young people on such issues. She was great and made a big difference, helping him understand what was going on and giving him tools to manage it.

He was on the list for CAHMS and funnily enough they rang up last week - over 2 years later - apologising for the delay but he'd only just reached the top of the list. They were very relieved to hear that we'd sought help elsewhere and that he's doing okay. I dread to think how he'd be if we'd had to wait and rely on them (not their fault but funding being what it is for these things, it's just not viable).

He's still got his sensitivities ofc but the difference now is that he's more self-aware so can take steps and get help if things start to slide. He even wants to be a therapist. Your DS sounds like my son was, OP, so I hope you get the help he needs - it's really good that you're onto it and that child psych should be able to point you in the right direction whether they're the right person to help or not.

The book is unhelpful because it puts too much focus on the child needing to fight or control their thoughts, which is counterproductive with OCD.

It can make children feel like their thoughts are wrong or dangerous, instead of helping them feel safe and in control.

It mentions sticky thoughts and a clogged brain, which sounds confusing and scary and likely make kids focus more on their difficult thoughts rather than less.

It uses childish old fashioned drawings combined with harsh messages (authors use terms like garbage, junk and trash as a metaphors for intrusive thoughts and garbage sorting as a way of think about get rid of bad thoughts.

They also mention a bunch of actual OCD references more suitable for an adult reader and then that's mixed in with questionable infantilising drawings very mixed messages but harsh in style.

The book teaches the child more things to stress out about by introducing new worrying scenarios so it basically could amplifiy OCD thought patterns

The above is my interpretation obviously, others may have different experiences with the book. As I said I threw this garbage in our recycle bin.

Read the less positive reviews. Many years ago I wrote a review and it's not even showing now although it did for a long time.

But they do need to “talk back” and fight their thoughts. That’s the key thing.

My only knowledge of this comes from a family member whose OCD from a fairly young age stemmed from hearing the word kill. Without anyone knowing until it became really obvious they struggled for years, but it doesn’t take much imagination to realise how difficult this must have made life for them as it’s a word we hear all the time and is hard to avoid.
As time went on it resulted in ever more complicated rituals having to be undertaken to neutralise the effect and in the end it all became too much and they knew they had to seek help.
They were lucky in that they had a very supportive GP who went above and beyond to provide support until the mental health services and CBT could be accessed
It may be that the OP’s little boy’s worries about swear words will vanish as quickly as they started but in view of the above I think she’s right to be concerned and at least keep a watching eye. Someone mentioned that perhaps she should talk to him about the words to try and remove the worry - this could well be the right to go but what she doesn’t want to do is end up causing more him more harm than good.
I am aware that one of our local schools is hosting a workshop run by the NHS MHST team. I had never heard of them but apparently they have been established to provide early-intervention mental health support to children and young people (ages 5 to year 13) in schools and colleges with the goal of providing accessible early support to prevent problems from escalating. I assume there are teams all over the country so it might be worth the OP seeing if she can track them down, all the more so as her GP doesn’t appear to have been particularly helpful.

I have only shared my thoughts and am happy I got rid of it before confusing my dc further during a difficult time. That's all. Everyone is free to chose the resources they feel work best for them. Also if you read my detailed feedback about the 'book' (in inverted commas as cheap print and production) it's about how this was conveyed. I hope my review helps some.

@Snaletrale young children shouldn't have to fight any part of themselves including their thoughts which are described here as garbage and trash. It's their parents' job to help them feel safe and able to manage their view of the world. Intrusive thoughts are very common at certain ages and during developmental changes and spurts and there are ways to be reassuring without blowing it out of proportion and making things worse. Maybe the book helps some but not my then sensitive child.

Thank you. Appreciate this. I have a teen with ocd and it’s hard to figure out the best approach. Camhs were useless as he has autism too so they said he needed specialised autism-appropriate therapy which they were unable to provide.

Not if they have OCD they don't. I've had OCD as long as I can remember and had lots of therapy and fighting thoughts is never something that works, you need to learn to live with the thoughts but ignore the compulsion basically. So this advice to fight the thoughts would likely make OCD worse

Yes, it’s the urge to perform the compulsion you need to fight/resist I believe.
Maybe that was what pp meant by ‘thoughts’ though? The thought that now I have to perform a certain ritual because otherwise something bad will happen?

Bless him, I was the same and so was my child when younger, transpired we are both neurodivergent and likely ocd / intrusive thoughts linked to our condition. Mine is far better managed by adhd medication now, my child is much older now and doesn’t seem to be bothered about it in the same way, did have some input from camhs but I don’t think they were great, partly because they were clueless about ASD
also we are a Tourette’s and ticcy family , not sure if this is linked to the intrusive thoughts somehow
not sure why that went bold above! .
worth getting a gp involved just for an initial chat and take it from there

yes, I think it’s more the terminology we are differing on.