How do you parent the OCD requests?

[wornoutmom]

Lisa:

When ds was this age he had us doing a bedtime compulsion of smoothing out all the wrinkles on his blanket. This could take upwards of 45 minutes and if we didn't do it we got the screaming,crying etc. I will share with you the ERP we did for this, as it was very successful and only took a short time. First, we discussed that it was upsetting us all that ODC (we called it "oscar" )was bossing him around and making him have to smooth out the wrinkles at bedtime. In order to get "oscar" to stop being the boss of ds, we had to do the opposite and "show him who's boss". We made posters to hang by his bed that said "Wrinkles rock" and "I love wrinkles" etc. Then we messed up the blanket on purpose and had him lie under it. At first we only put one wrinkle in and timed how long he could tolerate it. The next day we tried to beat the time (it made it a game - he was very competitive back then). After that exposure was done we would resume smoothing out the blanket as usual. But each day we would either beat the time or add another wrinkle to the cover. We went very slowly at first but after a few weeks of this the 'game" got boring and he started tolerating "some" wrinkles, which made the 45 minutes of smoothing to get it "just right" disappear. As far as the "over and over" thing. We learned to use the 3 and out rule. Once we'd said or done something 3 times, we were done. For somethings we had to start with a bigger number, but usually after the second time re-doing or repeating I would warn him about the 3 and out. We had a few meltdowns but he learned fairly quick that that was all I would do and soemtimes he would just stop after the second time because he didn't want to use up his thirdyet. Hope some of this helps. I know how utterly exhausting and hard it is. Finding a good ERP therapist was a life saver for us and the ERP/CBT lingo is a staple in our house now.