10-year-old with intrusive thoughts – worried!

[HotToast]

Hi there, 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.

This could also be OCD.

We had a similar thing at aged 10 with what my child described as being unable to stop negative thoughts and really he became really distressed to the point of self harm.
This is what helped us.
We talked to him about the thoughts being temporary as he was worried about they weren’t going to end. Also about many people who have these occasions in their lives and that you can learn to ride them like waves of the sea. I personally cope with doing something creative to let out the negativity feelings.
We talked about the brain has the emotional side and a logical thinking side and we need to sometimes get the logical side in control. There were a few key phrases that we gave the logical side that it could say to the emotional side to establish a positive internal monologue that reinforced perspective.
I would also make him understand that many good people get intrusive thoughts and they are liked to stress.
We then tried to get to the main cause which in our case was his confidence and self worth within his peer group at school, which we worked on as a family. When his stress levels peaked he really improved with some time away from his peers group at school.
This year he’s back to his old self. He still gets the same issues come up but is much better at dealing with them.

I spoke to a few of the parents at school and many were going through similar with their 10 year olds.

Just to add, I think that you are doing all the right things.
Take heart that he is able to open up to you.

Hello, this sounds really stressful for you. It does sound like it might be worth reading up on OCD relating to confessions or not saying certain words. My DD aged 10 is seeing CAMHS just now for possible OCD; her obsessions have been different but I understand what your child is experiencing is common too. If it is OCD then logic and building self esteem don’t necessarily work, and some sort of CBT may be more helpful.

Firstly I would tell him that you are really proud of him for confiding in you and that that was a really brave thing to do.

Then I would explain that lots of people feel the way he is - as this sort of thing can often make you feel like you are the only one and that you are crazy. Explain that he is having intrusive thoughts and that when he is feeling worried or anxious his brain can make him think those worries are much bigger and worse than they actually are. That your brain can worry too much about doing things accidentally that really you are never going to do and actually it's fine to ignore your brain if you can.

Then I would have a big session of shouting swear words at the top of your voice. Take the fear of swearing being this huge terrible thing by yelling swear words and laughing about it. Make shit into a fun song. Have him join in if it makes him feel better.

I suffered from intrusive thoughts in my early teens and the two things that got me over it pretty much completely were understanding that it was a common thing and just my brain going into overdrive and also facing it head on and doing the thing I was terrified of - or putting myself in that position and not doing it (if that makes sense) - it depends on what the intrusive thought is. Obviously if your intrusive thought it that you might accidentally push someone in front of a train you can't do that, but you can practice walking up and down the platform with someone and not doing it.

I hope that helps. I wish I felt I could confide in someone when I was suffering.

You ought to talk to the GP too - for CAMHs referral as well as school - double pronged.

I think you’ve had some excellent advice already and I hope things are improving for your lovely DS. I’m just wondering if you’ve tried introducing him to mediation? I’ve had stages where I’ve had intrusive thoughts and it does help. You can often find guided meditations on YouTube or there is a feee app called Insight Timer.

Running helps a lot of people with OCD symptoms too. Does he do much regular exercise?