Does my 5 year old have OCD?

Mental Health
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My daughter is 5 years old and for the past 5-6 months she has been very good at washing her hands. At first I thought she just liked playing with the water. She would wash her hands at least 6 -8 times a day on her own. Lately she has this thing about the towels. After she washes her hands she asks if the towel is clean. Every. Single. Time. Before she wipes her hands. When I give her a shower, I cannot wet her face. I have to give her a towel to cover her face and at the end of the shower she will wash her own face. An appt has been made and I will be bringing it up to the doctor. I just would like to know if this is something you see in your kids? When I asked her about why she does this, she just says she doesn’t want to get sick. We are careful during the pandemic but I don’t instill fear in my kids about it. She couldn’t have gotten it from school as she just started recently and this has been going on for a while.
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Help a mama out and respond anonymously on our forum. Does my 5 year old have OCD? - Mamas Uncut

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She’ll probably have some sort of OCD thing with clean towels

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So I was like this as a kid, I would nip that in the butt quick my mom said she had to tell me no for washing my hands cause it got so bad that my hands were cracking and bleeding. I have germaphobia and really bad OCD,

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My little guy is 2 almost 3 and I’ve noticed some VERY strong OCD tendencies. However he’s had them since he could crawl/walk this just much more pronounced now as he’s gotten older. I don’t know that she necessarily has OCD, but maybe just the pandemic in general has made her more aware of hand hygiene? Sadly our little peanuts have absorbed wayyy more stress and worry than they can always communicate. Good luck on your journey mama :heart:

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It’s best to let it run its course. Don’t put more attention to it. It’s pretty something she saw in a movie or show and she’ll be onto something else.

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OCD is a very complex medical condition. And it is very hard to be diagnosed as a young child with this.

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All the thing our kids have gone threw this last yr and half. School are very much with the germs thing and i know with my grandkids they are with wash hads using a new paper towel no sharing etc. It making alot of ocd kids. Just be patient .

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Why does parents now a days take normal child behavior and make it into something with a title.
Let kids be kids damn

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Kids hear so much more than we realize. Commercials on TV or on the radio in the car. Accidentally overhearing conversations. This could have come from hearing her hearing concerns about covid.

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You would be very surprised at what children hear and see and then they interpret what she t thinks is being said and done

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My daughter would wash her hands all the time. Anything she touched she would smell her hands after touching it

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I’m unsure on the OCD thing, but I used to wash my hand continuously. They’d end up raw after awhile(especially from the schools soap). Make sure you give her something to moisturize her hands, my mom used to put Vaseline and white cotton socks on my hands at night to help them heal. I’m no doctor but it hurt really bad when I did that to myself as a kid, so I wanted to at least lend some advice!

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She’s a child first growing up in a pandemic…

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OCD often comes with invasive thoughts. “X will happen if I don’t use a clean towel everytime I dry my hands”.

She’s been growing up in a time where everyone has hand washing hygiene shoved down their throats… It’s probably more of a reaction to that.

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Help a mama out and respond anonymously on our forum. Does my 5 year old have OCD? - Mamas Uncut

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Does she have issues with clothing? Lights? Sounds? Food textures? Could also be sensory processing disorder.

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I have ocd as an adult and it’s not washing my hands or being paranoid about germs. It’s intrusive thoughts like if I don’t wash my hands my whole family will die and I will have thoughts like this and worse on repeat in my head for hours and days and weeks. Like I didn’t send my friend a card they will never forgive me and I’ll never be trusted again. I’ll have the card picked out here it on the table for days or weeks and then be so panicked that I just don’t send it at all and then freak and disappear from my friends life because I forgot the card. These are intrusive and obsessive thoughts that play on repeat in my head. Crippling anxiety. Panic . Insomnia all of it. We are in a pandemic and all the adults are worried about hand washing and not getting sick. I’m sure that your child is just absorbing from her surroundings and nervous about being sick. Unless you are seeing the other stuff too

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My son has ocd with his hands also… he’s 18 now it’s not as bad as before but he would wash his hands so much they were raw and I would have to apply lotion and oil to them in gloves while he slept to heal his hands… this was way before the pandemic… we are super clean with hand washing but his was extremely excessive

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I wouldn’t take my kid to the doctor over it… I doubt it’s ocd. She’s a child in the middle of a pandemic, chances are this is the reason for the behavior.

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Yup. Whatever it is, your child is under entirely too much stress. Get intervention NOW. As a person who is almost 50 with full blown OCD that was only diagnosed two years ago and who has had it since at least 2…I am BEGGING you to intervene and find out 1. if she has it and 2. how the entire family can learn to process and cope. PLEASE. The best case scenario is the doctor tells you it is no big deal and she grows out of it. But if they say that and her compulsions continue, see someone else and keep seeing someone else til you find the right fit. This is SO important. OCD literally ruined my life and at this stage…undoing the damage will take longer than i have left.

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I’ve had ocd since shortly after having scarlet fever at age 3. I’ve been in therapy since age 7 and psychiatry since age 15. I did not get diagnosed with ocd until I was 29, even with an incredible amount of the right supports in place for decades. So, I don’t know if your daughter has ocd or not, but I do know that she needs you to advocate for her so she doesn’t have to wait until she can advocate for herself to be ok if that’s the case :heart:

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Get sick as in vomiting or just sickness? Could she have a fear of being sick, it’s called Emetophobia and can control your life, and you don’t have to have vomited to have it, it can be triggered by anything! Xx

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Great job mom!
You reached out to ask for understanding of why your daughter is doing this.
Follow thur with your pediatrician and seek advice on suggestions given!

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Yes and you did this to her…how else would she know it washes germs away if u didn’t tell her?

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Have u been talking about covid and germs around her ? Has she watched any news ?Could also be sensory processing disorder

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Seems she is worried about germs and covid