My ds is five and a happy, well adjusted boy, if slightly lacking in confidence in some areas. He's well behaved, does well at school and has a fab imagination.
However, we are getting a little concerned about strange rituals and obsessions he has; he's never liked having messy hands or face so won't paint, do playdoh or play in the gardening. He can't touch anything sticky, let alone eat it, so no ketchup, jelly, jam etc. if I ask him to put the ketchup in the fridge he gets really upset even if the bottle is clean. He also has strong routines especially in the bathroom, where he uses bits of tissue to flush the loo, open doors and won't dry his hands on the towel in case it's dirty. If he absolutely has to use the bin he opens it with his elbow.
Writing it down, it does sound a bit unusual but these things have slowly developed since he was about one. Also, over the last few months he has developed what I can only describe as 'tics'- for a while he kept blinking incessantly, then moved onto screwing his nose up every minute or so and now he keeps opening his mouth really wide when he's talking .
Has anybody got any experiences of these things or suggestions? I've tried talking and reassuring him but that doesn't help. Ignoring the 'tics' seems to work best as he does stop them on his own but soon replaces them with something else. I think I might talk to his teacher- or is this nothing to worry about? I don't want it to end up ruling his life (and I say that as someone who had mild OCD as a child, mainly around numbers, pairs, syllables in words etc and remember getting really stressed by it)