Re: Responding to OCD in 3-year-old

May 17, 2012

My son was diagnosed at 3 with severe OCD but had likely been moderate as early

as 9 months old or likely even from birth. My advice is to find a good CBT/ERP

therapist who is experienced with very young children ( very hard to find) and

get some information on how to treat. If this is OCD, the sooner you start

exposures on it, the better because in my experience, once it gets rolling it

can explode very fast and when it explodes, it is MUCH harder to treat. (analogy

to cancer- easier if it is localized, harder if metastatic).

In the meantime, while looking for a therapist, you can help him make a fear

hirarchy, and begin to tackle the things one at a time as a specific " time out

from life " type exposure. YOu are going to practice doing stuff " wrong " . My son

used to make " set ups " with playmobiles at that age which took hours to create

" right " then couldnt be touched ever again. They were museum pieces essentially.

Our babysitter even got him little bits of museum wax and tiny little red ropes

to rope them off ( kind of as a joke) before we realized we actually needed to

treat the " set ups " with exposures. It is really hard at age 3 ( and with a new

baby- my son was 20 months when we had our second and clearly had OCD, but was

my first and I thought he was just a very persnickety toddler) but also in my

experience really important to work on. No time to be more extensive right now,

but happy to discuss more rx in the very young child if you would like.

Recommended Posts