TPP 366: Natasha Daniels on Helping Kids Crush OCD

It’s been a while since we’ve talked about OCD on the show, so when anxiety and OCD expert Natasha Daniels reached out about her new book, Crushing OCD Workbook for Kids, I was excited to get into it all and pulled together a lot of questions ready to make this conversation as helpful as possible for our community.

You may know Natasha from her popular AT Survival Parenting podcast, or some of her other books like Anxiety Sucks: A Teen Survival Guide, How to Parent Your Anxious Toddler, Social Skills Activities for Kids, andIt’s Brave to Be Kind, or from her past visit to this show. She has more than two decades of experience as a child therapist, and combines her clinical expertise with her lived experience in her work, as she’s raising her three kids with anxiety and OCD. You also may have seen her work featured in places like Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, PsychCentral, The Child Mind Institute and The Mighty.

So for today’s conversation, I wanted to do a deep dive into OCD and learn more about what it is, how it manifests, signs of OCD that might be missed by parents, how to tease out when something is OCD versus anxiety or ADHD or other types of neurodivergence, and lastly, how parents can support their children if they have OCD. And of course, Natasha shared some insights and tools from her new Crushing OCD Workbook for Kids, which is truly a powerful, and easy-to-use resource for any child navigating OCD and the challenges that come along with it.

About Natasha Daniels

Natasha Daniels is an anxiety and OCD child therapist with over two decades of experience. She combines both her clinical expertise with her lived experience, raising her own three kids with anxiety and OCD.

She is the author of several books including Anxiety Sucks: A Teen Survival Guide, How to Parent Your Anxious Toddler, Social Skills Activities for Kids, It’s Brave to Be Kind, The Grief Rock, and Crushing OCD Workbook for Kids.

She is the creator of the website AT Parenting Survival, As well as the host of the show AT Parenting Survival Podcast and the Youtube channel, Ask the Child Therapist. Her work has been featured in various places including Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, PsychCentral, The Child Mind Institute and The Mighty.

Things you'll learn from this episode

• How OCD begins and manifests in children
• What intrusive thoughts or feelings are and how they can lead to compulsions
• Why OCD is often misdiagnosed as ADHD, anxiety, or self-harm and why it’s important to receive an accurate diagnosis
• What exposure response prevention (ERP) therapy is and how it supports individuals with OCD
• What OCD with support looks like over time with helpful treatment and the development of coping skills
• The importance of early intervention in supporting children with OCD
• How Natasha’s book Crushing OCD Workbook for Kids provides evidence-based tools and strategies to help children understand and manage their OCD

Resources mentioned for Unmasking Autism

• Natasha Daniels’ website
• Crushing OCD Workbook for Kids: 50 Fun Activities to Overcome OCD With CBT and Exposures by Natasha Daniels
• Natasha Daniels Talks about Anxiety and OCD in Kids (Tilt Parenting Podcast)
• AT Parenting Podcast
• AT Parenting Survival Online Courses
• AT Parenting survival on Instagram
• AT Parenting survival on Youtube
• Filmmaker Chris Baier Helps Families Get Unstuck from OCD (Tilt Parenting Podcast)
• UNSTUCK: An OCD Kids Movie (Available with Spanish, French, Russian, Greek, Portuguese subtitles and an audio description)
• Help for Childhood Anxiety and OCD with Dr. Eli Leibowitz (Tilt Parenting Podcast)
• Space Treatment website

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