I had the pleasure of talking with Dr. Edward Plimpton recently for his podcast, Your Anxious Child, 5 Minute Solutions, about the 25th anniversary edition of Freeing Your Child from OCD. I met Ted, who practices psychology in Massachusetts, early in my career at an International OCD Foundation Conference that took place in Philadelphia about 26 years ago! I hope you’ll give a listen. It was a very meaningful conversation— I cried (happy tears!). Among other things, we talked about the importance of language—and our mutual love of paying attention to it— to transform an experience from one that is scary into one that is manageable, funny, or even… absurd.
To that point, one vivid memory from that conference long ago: singing Elvis Presley’s “You Ain’t Nothing But a Hound Dog”…. with a group of kids with OCD. Fun times! (I always wanted to be a singer… ). Well, I was leading a workshop with some delightful, motivated kids with OCD and we were taking OCD’s serious messages and feeling permission to play with them— understanding that they were false alarms. In this case, we sang, “You ain’t nothin but a brain bug, bossing all the time, you ain’t nothin but a brain bug, telling me what’s wrong, get out of my life… I don’t need you around!” You’ve got to admit, it’s catchy. We also sang intrusive thoughts like “I’m so bad” or, “I probably lied” “I’m so dirty,” to Row, row, row your boat and Happy Birthday. It was fun. And fun is the exact opposite of anything related to OCD and that’s the point.
It is very confusing and distressing to all the very nice kids (and adults) with OCD that frightening, loud, bossy intrusive warnings barge in the door of the mind and won’t budge. OCD trades in all the most serious topics: contamination, illness, harm to loved ones, blasphemy, sin. It’s scary, and it’s hard to ignore. And this is where rituals come in—tap two times and that bad thing that you imagined won’t happen, wash your hands till they’re raw and everyone will be safe. Rituals seem like a helpful solution, because temporarily they reduce anxiety. But quicker than you can say—what if— the thoughts are back and the cycle starts again.
The most empowering thing we can do for kids, in general, is to explain how things work in the world. That’s what we as parents and educators do. And in the case of OCD, teaching them to relabel the frightening messages—which feel like they are coming from the principal, an authority figure, the highest power—the boss, as “brain hiccups” (as Dr. Judith Rappoport wrote in her seminal book, The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Washing His Hands), or as “junk mail” or “spam,” (as I wrote about in Freeing Your Child From OCD) — that is a total game changer.
What is most confusing for kids is how it can be OK or even good to turn away from messages that are so scary. How could they possibly make a choice to do that? Isn’t that dangerous? The answer is no. Yes, the messages of OCD are serious and important—we want to be safe and keep our loved ones safe—but they are not serious and important or relevant for that child in that moment. It’s a mismatch. It’s out of sync. Nothing in that moment was actually at risk. Turning lights and faucets on and off three times is not how you protect yourself from failing the test; putting your clothes on and off three times so no one in the family is harmed is not how the world works—but it is absolutely how OCD works. Still—hearing something scary makes us feel scared. That’s how we are wired.
Relabeling OCD’s frightening messages as spam reroutes the goal. The navigational plan changes. It’s no longer about “getting rid of thoughts” or “doing what they demand”; it’s about riding out the anxiety they cause until you reset and can get on with your day and your life. That’s why not only is it OK to play with those messages but doing things like singing them to Elvis Presley’s tunes changes the emotional tone—shifting the nervous system from being an alarm mode to resetting to levity and connection.
Obviously, this is a fine art: doing this when your child is ready, and not getting ahead of them on the levity front. But the first step is separating your child from the OCD. Your child isn’t OCD; they are having no fault intrusive sticky thoughts. When they can separate themselves from the thoughts, they become the deciders. They can sort their brain mail. Is this thought real? Or is it junk mail—impersonal, a scam, something that sounds important but isn’t? This is the foundation for step-by-step challenging the thoughts, skipping or shortening rituals, and riding out the waves of discomfort to see that you do reset—because there was never an emergency. Through the magic of neuroplasticity—the brain learns new pathways from your child’s new sorting tree, and the filter that was letting these thoughts through (and placing them at greatest priority) begins to filter them out.
Much more to say on all of this—please check out the podcast or watch here on youtube and the 25th Anniversary Edition of Freeing Your Child from OCD!. Here’s to less OCD, more empowerment, more levity, and… maybe even more singing all around!
©2026 Tamar E. Chansky, Ph.D.
