"OCD"ness in kids

@trinihd (996)
United States
February 25, 2008 7:45am CST
This is not a story about full OCD, thank God, but of the things I (and others-including the parents) have noticed developing in my two nieces Rianna and Daniella. Rianna is two and a half years old and Daniella is seven. Rianna will get angry at her mother if her mom tries to get her to wear a sandal that has a dirt spot on it, this is a stain only, and even though you try to convince her it is not dirty, she won't listen. But I guess at that age, there are other things to consider. Because oddly enough she has no problem running barefoot in actual dirt, which is a conflict of ideas we cannot seem to reconcile with. Now the same is not true for stains on clothes, whether it’s because she doesn’t notice these yet, we do not know, but she is particularly sensitive about her feet and if while wearing shoes, she gets a bit of sand on it, it has to come off immediately and be dusted. Daniella has probably become more tolerant in recent years as she got older, but she still refuses to touch anything that is 'garbage' from other people, or that has been used by someone else (there is not clean) like a plate or a cup, so if you ask her to take it to the sink for you, she acts as if she can't bear it, holds the thing at the ends of her fingers just because she doesn't want to touch it. This is not a child who refuses to help, so you know it's not laziness because in her head, she is very willing to help. She has volunteered to help me clean my room and has even on one occasion cleaned my handbag of all the extra paper, but I know if I agree to let her help me and we actually get to my room, cleaning will be a bigger task because we have to get around her "phobia" of touching certain things. We've decided they definitely have OCD tendencies and it would be really great if they never get so bad that it becomes a problem in their everyday life, but I wonder if there are things we can do to get them to overcome these tendencies. From my sister's own omissions, she has had some of those tendencies but not nearly to the extreme that her kids seemed to have developed it. Did they inherit it from her then? And why is it more pronounced in them?
1 response
@sedel1027 (17846)
• Cupertino, California
25 Feb 08
I know that some people actually have OCD and it is a serious disease that can ruin your life. HOwever, I believe that in young children who idolize their parents, this is not true OCD. The behavior is all learned. My family worried about my brother turning my poor nephew into a neurotic. My brother was never a clean freak or a germaphobic until my nephew was born. He is actually not a clean freak now, but he washes his hands a lot and avoid germy situations. My nephew sort of follows this, but you know that my brother constantly on him to wash his hands, wiping his face and trying to enforce a high level of clean will negatively affect him.