Do you and your college-aged kid managing OCD celebrate wins? In today’s podcast, I would like to share with you why this is so important and how you do it.

 

Welcome to the OCD Power Parenting Podcast. If you are the parent of a college-aged kid learning how to manage OCD, you’re in the right place. Here you will find the confidence that you as a Power Parent are saying and doing the things that will open the doors of possibilities for your son or daughter as they launch into adulthood. The parenting ideas you find here are tweaked for the stage in which your kids have car keys and credit cards. This is the time when your role as a parent shifts from that of a boss to a consultant. 

 

I’m Dr. Vicki Rackner your host. I wear three hats as I speak to you. The first is of a mother of a now 24-year-old son diagnosed with OCD when he was in college. The second is that of a physician. My third hat is that of a coach with two decades of experience helping my clients achieve higher levels of performance, and getting what they really want. 

 

In today’s episode, I would like to share with you a practice that invites you into the heart of Power Parenting: celebrating wins. 

 

The Gap or the Gain

 

I recently read the book by Dan Sullivan called The Gap or The Gain. I’ll leave a link in the notes below. 

 

Dan has helped well over 20,000 entrepreneurs achieve higher level of success. Not surprisingly, high performers set goals. In this book, Dan points out that the way you measure progress matters. 

 

Let’s say you had a plan to bike from California and New York in 60 days. 

 

Sixty days into your trip you find yourself in Chicago.

 

How do you describe the results you got?

 

Do you say, “I only made it to Chicago. I fell way short of getting to New York in 60 days.” In this version of the story, you’re comparing where you are now to where you wanted to be. If so, you are in what Dan Sullivan calls The Gap. When you’re in The Gap, you’re focussed on what you DON’T have and what DIDN’T happen.

 

What if, instead you said, “Oh my goodness. I can hardly believe I biked all the way from California to Chicago. Before this trip, my longest bike ride was 10 miles! Let’s celebrate.” You are now in what Dan Sullivan calls The Gain. You look back and see how far you’ve come.

 

In these two stories, the circumstances are exactly the same. Now, which story is going to help you get from Chicago to New Your with joy and enthusiasm?  

 

Living in The Gain, of course.

 

The book lays out compelling arguments for living in the Gain. Dan Sullivan recommends looking forward as you set goals, and looking backwards when you measure your progress. 

 

 

What Does This Have to Do with Parenting a Child with OCD?

 

As a parent of a kid with OCD, you WANT to facilitate your child’s transformation.You want to support them as they take the metaphorical bike ride from California to New York. You want to launch your child into a bright adult future in front of them. 

 

Many days this can feel like a Herculean task for both you and your child. As a physician I observe that when people are in pain, they’re drawn to The Gap. It’s just human behavior. 

 

Parenting from The Gap mean asking the question, “What’s wrong?” And when your child is managing OCD, this can be a very long list. When you’re in The Gap you see the unwanted behaviors and the doors closed by this supervillain we call OCD.

 

Power Parents living in The Gain ask, “What’s right?” They see their amazing kids and the gifts that they want to unlock. They hold the vision of what life could be like on the other side of OCD and express the confidence in their kids’ ability to get there. 

 

When Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her bedroom, her parents wanted Elizabeth back. When your child is abducted by OCD, you want your own child back.  That’s what Power Parents focus on.  

 

 

Why Parent in The Gain and Not in The Gap?

 

You get to decide in any moment whether to parent from the Gap or the Gain.

 

My own mother and father parented me in The Gap. I could bring home a report card with all A’s except for one B and my parents would comment on the B. I carried living in The Gap this into adulthood. If I deliver a keynote address and get great reviews, I focus on the negative comment. 

 

It’s easy to run your life on gap fuel, especially when your child is learning to manage OCD.

 

Here are three problems with parenting in The Gap. 

  

First, it’s not fun. I remember going through a time when it seemed like everything coming out of my mouth was an instruction or a correction for my toddler child. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”  “Put away your shoes.” “Get your finger out of your nose,” to which my son replied, “But it does such a great job of getting the goobers.” I got tired of listening to the sound of my own voice.  

 

Second, it’s risky. You compromise your own most powerful parenting tool—your loving connection with your child. As your children launch into adulthood, they have a choice about whether to be in a relationship with you. I cannot tell you how many adults with late-onset OCD tell me, “I just wrote my parents off. They just made things worse.” This is a tragedy because no matter how old you are, you never outgrow your need for your mother.

 

Third, and most importantly, it doesn’t work very well. Despite my harping, my son’s shoes remained scattered throughout the house. Table manners didn’t improve. 

 

Back then, when my child was just a toddler and the stakes were lower, my parenting coach advised a tweak that changed our lives. She said, “Instead of paying attention to what your child is doing wrong, pay attention to what he’s doing right.”

 

She was recommending that I shift from The Gap to The Gain.

 

I held my tongue when I almost tripped on my son’s shoes in the hallway. Instead, I waited until the time when he put his shoes away and said, “Thank you for putting your shoes away.” 

 

I ignored the bad table manners and waited for the moment I could say, “Thank you for being so polite at the table and chewing with your mouth closed.” 

 

When I shifted from parenting from The Gap to parenting from The Gain, it made a world of difference. 

 

If you want to be a force for healing in your kid’s life, parent from The Gain.

 

All you have to do is shift perspectives. 

 

How do you do it? Put “change your mindset” on your to-do list? 

 

Celebrating wins is a habit that helps you get and stay in The Gain. It’s like the alarm that goes off and wakes you up to your mindset. 

 

When you’re in The Gain you ask yourself, “What’s right about my current circumstances?”  

 

For example, my son had symptoms of OCD for almost 4 years before he was diagnosed.

 

It’s very easy for me to look at those circumstances and say to myself, "What kind of negligent parent was I? Why did it take me—a physician— so long to put the pieces together and come up with the diagnosis? I should have known better.” Those thoughts place me squarely in the Gap.

 

What good can come of these thoughts? Nothing! They’re indulgent thoughts that don’t get my son or me closer to the other side of OCD. It’s not too different than your kids choosing to believe their OCD thoughts.

 

How could I shift to The Gain? 

 

Do you remember how things were before your child got the diagnosis of OCD? When I operated breast cancer patients and saw them in follow up a year later, they often told me that the hardest part of the whole experience were the days in which they waited for the pathology report. One patient said, “I know that I can deal with just about anything. I just need to know what I’m up against.

 

Once my son was given the diagnosis of OCD, I had a better idea about what we were up against. 

 

As I tell the story of my son getting diagnosed, I could say, “I’m so grateful that we have a diagnosis. Now I understand why my son does the things that he does, and more importantly, what I can do to help him live a full life.” 

 

Same circumstances. Different story.

 

Magic happens when you live in The Gain. You see more possibilities and more choices.

 

You can Power Parent from The Gain and not the Gap. You can always look back and see how far your child has come. You can look back and see how far you’ve come as a parent. You can always ask, “What RIGHT about these circumstances?”

 

Celebrating The Gains in Action

 

Let me give you and example of celebrating gains in action. 

 

My son enjoys powerlifting. He wanted to deadlift 600 lbs. This means bending down, lifting a bar with 600 pounds of weight off the floor and rising to a standing position. 

 

He trained hard and I was there to witness him deadlift 540 lbs at a competition. He set a new personal record. 

 

If my son were in The Gap, he could have said, “I blew it. I set a goal to deadlift 600 lbs, and I came up 60 pounds short.”

 

Fortunately, he was in The Gain right after the competition. “I broke a personal record. I worked hard. I’ll get to 600 lbs!” 

 

And we all celebrated.

 

Even if he didn’t break a personal record, we could have celebrated his hard work and dedication.

 

Now, my son has already signed up to do another competition.

 

He still wants to deadlift 600 lbs. 

 

And I want to help him get there. 

 

What Does Your Child Want?

 

We’re asking our kids to do the very hard work of managing their minds. We’re asking them to witness their thoughts, resist urges and lean onto anxiety and fear. And we’re asking them to do all this with an incompletely developed part of the brain that controls executive function. Once this happens at age 25 or 26, their risk of making mistakes go down, as reflected in their lower car insurance premiums. 

 

What’s in it for your child to do this hard work?

 

Yes, they want to make the pain stop. 

 

But moving away from what you DON’T want is different than moving towards something you DO want. 

 

If this process of getting on the other side of OCD is like the metaphorical bike ride, what is their metaphorical New York? What’s on the other side of poorly managed OCD?

 

My son wants to deadlift 600 pounds.

 

What does your child really want? Finding a life partner? Going for their dream job? Pursuing a passion? Deepening friendships?

 

What stands between where they are now and this amazing future? If you’re here, chances are good that poorly managed OCD is on the list in some way.

 

You know your child. You know something about their hopes and dreams. You know what their gifts are. And those gifts do not go away when your child has a brain wiring glitch. And that’s all that OCD is. It’s a brain wiring problem that generates unwanted thoughts that trigger the unwanted behaviors.

 

If your child had vision problem, that could stand in the way. You would get them glasses.

 

If your child had diabetes, that could stand in the way. You would help them manage their diet and insulin. 

 

In a similar way, you can help your child manage their  minds so they can move on to the richness of adult life.

 

 

Power Parenting Can Help Your Child Get There

 

Your child will get to the other side of OCD one step at a time.

 

Parenting in the Gain will help you be a force for healing.

 

Celebrating wins is a discipline that will shift you from The Gap to The Gain.

 

Each win you celebrate makes the next win easier.

 

 

I feel very fortunate to have a great relationship with my son. 

 

We don’t have OCD all figured out. He struggles. Sometimes I feel like I need superpowers to step into my role as a Power Parent.

 

I do this hard work because i know with complete certainty that our relationship impacts the rate at which my child gains mastery in his life. 

 

I’ll always proudly serve in my role as my child’s number one fan. I’ll risk having the tough conversations and telling my truth when the time is right. While he now has two therapists, I have been his  OCD/life coach.

 

Ineffective Parenting Can Make Things Worse

 

I have an insider seat to see how OCD is impacting my son’s life. 

 

I believe, for example, that my son is in OCD brain circuitry more often than he thinks. I also wonder how poorly managed OCD got in the way of his goal of deadlifting 600 pounds.

 

What do I do with that information?

 

It’s so tempting to offer instructions like I told my so to put his shoes away.

 

The problem is that it doesn’t work.

 

Here are some parenting styles that are not helpful:

 

A Parent Philosopher might say, “Sometimes things just don’t work out despite your best efforts.”

 

A Pitying Parent might say,”Oh, OCD makes your life so hard. I’m so sorry” 

 

A Parent Critic might say, “Of course you didn’t hit 600 pounds. You can’t  expect a body deprived of sleep and good nutrition to perform at this level.”

 

A Parent Fixer might say, ”Here’s what you need to do. Stop indulging in your obsessive thoughts and treating them like they were real. Your unmanaged OCD zaps your energy that you could be investing in lifting.”

 

Think carefully before you offer unsolicited advice. I have a coaster that says, “Before you tell me what I did wrong, you should first know I don’t care.”

 

 

 

Compare that to the Power Parenting style.

 

Power Parents get curious. They pose questions for your kid to answer. I could ask my son, “What changes could you make in this training cycle to help you get to your goal of deadlifting 600 pounds?” Or, if I think my son is open to a message in any moment, “How do you think that your success in managing OCD might impact your performance at the gym?” 

 

You could get curious when your child offers updates. In my son’s case I could say, “I heard you say that you arrived at the gym and you could’t hit the weights because your energy was zapped.  What drained your energy?” 

 

Power Parents ask permission to offer observations. If the timing feels right, I could ask my son, “Would you be open to hearing what I saw from the sidelines as I watched you prepare for this event?”

 

Be a power parent. Parent form the Gain and not the Gap. Celebrate wins to bring you there. 

 

Celebrating Wins Step by Step

 

There’s a process for celebrating wins. 

 

First, identify something your child really wants. Ideally they want this thing more than they want to maintain life as it is. For my son it would be deadlifting 600 lbs. 

 

Second, break it down into bite-sized pieces. What needs to happen in order for your child to get what she wants? For my son it means bringing his A game to each training session and following his training protocol without under training or over training. 

 

Now identify one specific stumbling block and create a challenge to remove that barrier. 

 

My son has shared that sometimes he goes off his 60-day training protocol. Sometimes his OCD bully tells him he cheated so he needs to start his reps over. This is one of the ways his moral OCD shows up in his life. However, both over-training and under-training impair performance. His challenge could be how often he stays on protocol.

 

The challenge you set up might not have anything to do with OCD.  My son does not see any problem with getting 4 or 5 hours of sleep each night. He doesn’t believe all the evidence in the medical literature about the importance of sleep. He’s 24 and feels invincible. But he’s willing to try just about anything to get to his goal of deadlifting 600 pounds. As a challenge, he could take on keeping track of the number of hours of sleep that he gets each night, and then creating a way of scoring his performance at the gym. 

 

As an aside, I believe that promoting general brain health with good sleep, good nutrition, human connection and regular exercise makes it easier to manage OCD and get to wins.

 

I recommend taking on only one challenge at a time. My son has a 90 day training cycle, so we could potentially define a series of challenges.

 

Define measurable outcomes. Just like you keep score in a football game, you want to set up the challenges in a way that you can keep track of the progress. It might be how many days your child arrived on time to class or the number of times they resisted urges or the  number of times they ate on protocol.

 

Track progress. Your child might want to get an app or track with good ol’ pencil and paper. 

 

Schedule reviews. You become your child’s accountability buddy. Decide how frequently you will check in and share progress. Maybe at the beginning it’s daily and evolves into weekly.

 

Celebrate wins. How will you and your child celebrate? Ideally that’s set up in advance.

 

Choose your first challenges wisely. You want to see and celebrate early wins.

 

Here’s a great starter challenge. Challenge your child to come up with three things for which they are grateful every day. My son and I have done this as a bedtime ritual forever. Gratitude is the act of recognizing and  celebrating what’s right. Then your child can keep track of whether or not they did it.

 

Your child may not be a place in which they want to collaborate with you in setting challenges and celebrating wins.  That’s okay! You can find things that you comment on without their buy-in for formal challenges. 

 

You can simply notice verbally when your child does something right. “You used to get very angry when your grandmother offered her ‘suggestions.’ You did a great job staying calm when she did her thing.” 

 

Power Parents understand that they can only control their own behavior.

They do the helpful things regardless of where their kids are at.

 

Noticing wins is a great way to build the kind of trust that serves as the foundation for a deeper connection with your child. 

 

Celebrate Your Parenting Wins.

 

Let’s take about something that might be even more powerful than celebrating your child’s wins. That’s celebrating your wins as a Power Parent.

 

You might want to have a conversation with your partner and ask, 
 “How are we doing as parents? What are we doing well? Where could we get better?” 

 

I lay out the qualities of a Power Parent in the Power Parenting Program, but here are a few to consider:

 

Power Parents treat their children with respect. They respect their child’s privacy, their child’s agency in their own life and their child’s ability to do the right things. 

 

And now for a quick commercial break…

 

Just so you know, my son and I hold a shared vision: to alleviate the pain and suffering that so many families experience as OCD enters their lives. 

 

We want to get families to the other side of OCD where the same qualities that create the challenges —the grit and perseverance and getting things done—become harnessed for the good.

 

My son is my silent partner in this venture. We discuss the podcast episodes together, and many of the best parenting ideas come from him!

 

We don’t claim to know it all or pretend that we’ve cracked the code. We struggle. We are simply offering our authentic experiences and lessons we have learned along the way.

 

Story-telling brings lessons to life. You can trust that I have my son’s permission to share our stories with you. He has set boundaries around things he wants to keep private, and I will honor that. 

 

You will also hear stories from my clients with their explicit consent. They also have the right to say no.

 

Now back to the podcast…

 

Power Parents keep calm, especially during those chaotic times when  their child is in OCD crisis.

 

Power Parents are able to sit with their child’s pain without denying or dismissing it.

 

Power Parents see their child’s gifts. They remind their kids of their superpowers—even when their kids forget.

 

Power Parents create a judgment-free zone. My own style of parenting is to be the safe place my child can tell me anything. You might want some boundaries. 

 

For example some of our kids’ obsessions are sexual in nature. You might not want to have this conversation with your child. If you set boundaries, though, I recommend that you identify an adult with whom your child can have tough conversations. 

 

Power Parents apologize when they make mistakes. 

 

Your goal is not perfection. My own parenting coach says if you can be the parent you want to be just 50% of the time, love will take you to 100%.

 

Do any of these qualities call you? Set a goal for yourself. Choose one thing you want to improve and create a challenge around it.

 

You might wonder, “Should I share this with my kids that I'm investing in my parenting skills?” Absolutely! You can even invite your kids to craft your challenges.

 

Ram Das says, “Parents know how to push your buttons. They installed them.” Ask your kids what pushes their buttons and how you can hopefully uninstall them.

 

You might even consider parallel challenges. You and your child might set goals together and follow your progress. If you’re asking your child to resist an urge, maybe you resist one of your urges too.

 

But I Don’t Have the Time!

 

You might be thinking, “I am SO busy. I don’t have the time to put another task on my to-do list.” I get it! I’m right there with you.

 

Here’s a question for you. How much time are you investing in things that don’t move you and your child closer to the vision of getting on the other side if OCD? 

 

How much time do you spend being reactive rather than proactive? 

 

Entrepreneurs talk about their ROI—their return on investment. When is your TIME ROI? 

 

My experience that is that the time I spend improving my relationship with my son is the highest-value time investment that ultimately leads to the best results. Human connection is powerful medicine.

 

 

 

Meta OCD and the Gain

 

For many parents, myself included, OCD sometimes feels like a curse. That’s Gap thinking.

 

How can you shift to Gain thinking?

 

Here are a few thoughts for your  consideration.

 

I will just remind you that you have amazing kids. Imagine the grit and determination and hard work it takes to feed the OCD beast. Your kids get things done. 

 

Managing OCD means facing life’s biggest challenge. What do we fear? That we will fail? That we will experience losses? That we will be consumed by emotion? That we will lose control? Learning to manage OCD means confronting all of these fears.

 

The very things that we ask our kids to do to manage OCD—witnessing and choosing their thoughts, resisting urges and leaning onto unpleasant feelings will set them up for a lifetime of success. These are skills I impart when I work with my own entrepreneurial and physician clients. 

 

Once our kids learn to how manage OCD, they have nothing to fear. They can enter adult life daring greatly. What a gift!

 

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