#Getting rid of obsessive thoughts how to

Or violent: She thinks she wants to kill her mother. Sometimes these thoughts are bad because they are mean: A family friend is “fat” or “wrinkly.” Sometimes they are sexual: She imagines a classmate naked.

#Getting rid of obsessive thoughts how to

Through cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), anxious kids can learn skills to separate themselves from their thoughts and find ways to deal with them without confessing.Ī mom writes to ask how to help her 10-year-old daughter, who is worrying a lot about “bad thoughts.” If “bad thoughts” make your child so worried it’s hard for them to focus on other things, they might have an anxiety disorder. Confessing over and over only makes the worrying worse. The goal is for kids to learn to let these thoughts pass on their own. It’s just a thought trying to make itself seem more important than it really is. You can tell them bad thoughts that get stuck in their heads are like a “bully in the brain.” The thought is not them. A bad thought doesn’t make them a bad person. To help kids handle “bad thoughts,” teach them that having a thought doesn’t make it true. Some kids get stuck in this pattern and feel the need to confess over and over. And that makes them want to tell or confess these thoughts, so they can get reassurance that they’re not bad.

Most of us just shrug these thoughts off.īut for some kids, “bad thoughts” make them worry they’re bad people.

Like imagining a stranger naked or thinking of stabbing someone. Everybody has thoughts sometimes that make them think, “Whoa, where did that come from?” These thoughts can be mean, sexual or violent.