r/ChildPsychology

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At first i was not sure but now i see the pattern.

I have been working for this family for about 8 months. I am taking care of a 3 year old girl.

What should i do?

It really drained me mentally. Now it's difficult for me to go to sleep and to get up in the morning as i feel the anxiety kicks in every time i think about this kid.

Every single time, since the beginning, i try to set my boundaries and discipline her, and every single time I don't follow her words, she will punish me the next day and cause scenes for WEEKS. To the point it doesn't make sense anymore.

Example :

# Yesterday, when her Mom was trying to put her nap, the kid said she wanted to nap with me. Later when we were in bed, she changed her mind and asked for her mom, and later asked for her dad also (this happened a lot, she changed her mind every second and her mom already explained to her that she can't change her mind like that, like it's nothing. And she always ignored it when she was with me). And i know if i let her escape her room for mom/dad, her parents wouldn't be happy with it. So i set my boundaries, and I stick with her mom's words. I stayed with her until she fell asleep (it took a lot of negotiation and "discipline tone" for her to follow my words).

# Then the next day, when i came in the morning, the kid told me about the pizza dough that she took from the fridge and i asked her "oh you're gonna cook a pizza?" And she yelled on top of her lungs with an angry face "NOOOOO!!!!" That was our 1st convo in the morning and it's already that bad. Following the day, every time I say something she will yell and hit me. Like if i say "Hi girl" her reply was "NOOOO!!!" then hit me with her hand.

And her parents think there's something wrong with me. It's like i have failed to be a professional Nanny for this family.

I feel like i am being punished for doing the right thing for this kid.

Hello, I’ve grown up around cheaters, liars, abusers(I’m speaking about the men specifically) and everything similar in between growing up. My own bio dad, My grandpa, my stepdad and some other family and things of that nature. How do I raise “good men” ? Any tips? Would putting them into activities help? Showing them how to be empathetic? I’m fully curious because I just want them to be better than what I’ve grown up around. Any tips?

I am a first time parent with a child under the age of two. For the first year of their life, my mother was a primary caregiver along with me and my partner. She has a very strong bond with my child. I used to make sure that we called her every day so she could see her grandchild because we live multiple time zones apart. Sometimes my child still asks for grandma.

My mother has never understood why I always insist on my child having their own room. When I travel and it’s not possible for my child to have their own room, I insist on them having their own crib. She’s always told me that it’s unnecessary and that kids can get too cold if they’re not sleeping with an adult. She used to ask to have my child sleep with her and my dad. I always said no, and she’d say that she respected my choice but then she would ask again later.

A few weeks ago, I flew with my child and my partner to visit my parents at their home. It was not possible for my child to have their own room because my parent’s house is too small. My parents insisted on having my child sleep with them because they said that me and my partner looked very tired. We were also extremely ill and they felt that we needed to rest. I gave in and I let my child sleep with my parents.

The last morning I caught my parents having sex with each other with my child in the bed with them. I have not spoken to my parents since, and I do not know how to move forward. They knew they were crossing a line. They knew I would be upset. I don’t know if it’s safe to foster any kind of relationship. However, my child still misses their grandparents and still asks for them. What should I do?

6 year eating behaviour

Hi All

Sorry for lengthy paragraph .
I am going through a trouble times in married life but 6 year kiddo is everything for me. Kiddo was overweight through since excessive feeding by spouse. I am trying to feed more healthy and less quantity as I am worried about weight and r possible bullying in school( kiddo was called fat by other kids in school). Recently I noticed pattern of multiple items missing from fridge or basement fridge( muffins, small soda cans etc.) When I asked kiddo how many were eaten, kiddo said I ate/drank 1 other were by other parent. Me and kiddo are alone in the house as spouse is away since last week. Kiddo had 2 egg omelette for breakfast, small pizza slice & 1 small muffin, half apple, juice box for lunch for school. After school kiddo had 1 banana & half apple. I had to work 1 hour extra from home and kiddo was playing in the basement( all toys are in basement). I bought 12 pack of small chocolate chip muffins( each weighs 28g, 130 cal) today and noticed 10 missing muffins in the evening. When questioned, kiddo admitted to eat 1 and rest 9 were eaten by imaginary creature named Bouser( creature used to play pretend game since 2-3 years old). Kiddo also admitted to eating 250 ml of ice cream during that 1 hour. Kiddo becomes really sad and cry if I become strict or question. I am really worried about kid’s health and weight and also struggling as single parent as my spouse is not involved in our lives/activities. I take kid to 4 activities( 2 lessons and 1 practice) and almost 4-5 times per week to park and cycling. I am thinking about storing all kids food in the basement fridge and keeping it locked. Only give 1-2 snacks as required. Am I over analyzing? What can I do over to parent such behaviour from becoming lying habit and what can I do more to fix this situation.

I really appreciate all halo and guidance

Long but pls read need advice, I’m hurting ! TRIGGER WARNING 😭😭😭😭😭

I really need honest advice because I honestly feel like I’m breaking as a person, and I don’t know anymore if my feelings are valid or if I’ve just been made to feel like I’m always the problem.
I’m the youngest of three sisters, and my entire life I’ve felt like the unwanted one. It was always my two sisters together while I stood on the outside trying to feel included. Some of my earliest memories are feeling left out by them. I remember things like one sister inviting the other to sleepovers while I wasn’t even asked. I remember sitting there pretending it didn’t hurt while feeling completely crushed inside. People might think those moments are “small,” but when you spend your whole childhood constantly being the extra person, the forgotten one, the one nobody chooses, it slowly destroys something inside you.
I remember even in primary school, when I was around 7 years old, I wrote something concerning at school about not wanting to be here anymore because of how lonely and left out I felt. The school contacted my parents about it. Looking back now, it breaks my heart that a child that young was already carrying those feelings so deeply. No little girl should feel that unwanted that early in life.
Even now at 26 years old, I still feel like that little girl wanting her sisters to love her the same way they love each other. Whenever they’re together, I end up crying because it reminds me that no matter how hard I try, I still feel like I don’t belong with them. They don’t really include me, acknowledge me publicly, or make me feel wanted. Their partners have treated me badly too, excluded me, disrespected me, and instead of my sisters protecting me or standing up for me, they brush it off like my feelings don’t matter.
Then they wonder why I isolate myself, stay in my room, disappear from people, or react emotionally. But nobody understands how exhausting it is spending your entire life feeling unwanted by the people you needed most. I didn’t become withdrawn for no reason. I learned to hide myself because it hurt less than constantly feeling rejected.
What hurts the most is that despite everything I’ve been through, I still love deeply. I still care about people. I still try to help others even while I’m falling apart myself. I don’t have a cruel heart. I never wanted my sisters to hurt the way they’ve hurt me.
And the thing is, I didn’t come from a bad family. My parents are good people. They worked hard, kept us safe, stayed clean, and always tried to look after me and my sisters. My parents have sat in a room with me, seen all the pain and trauma I’ve carried, and still looked at me and said I’m a good person with a good heart. They’ve seen the things I went through as a young girl that nobody should ever have to go through, and they can still see the good in me underneath all the pain.
When I was around 20/21, I was sexually assaulted after being spiked. I remember trying to physically stop the man while another person there did absolutely nothing to help me. That moment destroyed me mentally and emotionally. It changed how I saw myself, how safe I felt in the world, everything. I carried that pain alone for 4–5 years because I was ashamed, traumatised, confused, and didn’t know how to even speak about what happened to me. I buried it so deep inside myself that it started destroying me slowly from the inside out.

Then around 5 months later, the man who assaulted me was shot and killed. People probably think that would somehow bring closure, but it didn’t. It made everything worse in a different way because now I’ll never get answers, never hear accountability, never hear “I’m sorry.” I just have to live with what happened forever while he’s gone and everyone else moved on with their lives.
When I finally broke down years later and told my family, I honestly felt invisible. Especially with my sisters. I never got the comfort I desperately needed. Never “I’m so sorry that happened to you.” Never “you didn’t deserve that.” Never a hug, never emotional support, nothing that made me feel safe or understood. It was almost like my trauma was too uncomfortable for everyone, so it became easier to act like it never happened while I silently drowned trying to survive it alone.
Then later, I met someone and fell really hard for him. We got into a relationship, and he was using drugs. Around that time, I already felt abandoned and emotionally disowned by so many people around me, and I was mentally in one of the darkest places of my life. Being around that environment while already broken emotionally is how I ended up getting involved in drugs too. I wasn’t trying to ruin my life — I was trying to escape pain that felt unbearable and feel wanted by someone when I felt like I had nobody.
After we broke up, I found out I was pregnant. Not long after, I had a chemical pregnancy/miscarriage while also trying to survive heartbreak at the same time. That loss shattered me more than people realise. Even though it was early, to me it was still real. I was grieving a future, grieving love, grieving the possibility of becoming a mother one day with someone I cared about.
I remember feeling so alone during that time, already carrying years of trauma, anxiety, depression, and heartbreak, hoping maybe for once my sisters would comfort me. Instead, one of the only things my older sister said was that I probably would’ve had postpartum depression anyway. I never even got a proper “I’m sorry for your loss.” I was sitting there emotionally destroyed, grieving, hormonal, heartbroken, and somehow I still felt like my pain didn’t matter enough to be acknowledged. That comment broke something in me because I couldn’t understand how someone could see their little sister hurting that badly and respond so coldly.
My family eventually found out how badly I was struggling, and to their credit they did support me when things became really bad. I’ve now been clean since the start of this year, moved out of home, and I’m genuinely trying hard to rebuild my life and heal.
But what hurts is that no matter how hard I fight to become better, it still feels like my sisters only see my mistakes and not the pain behind them. They hold onto resentment while I’m sitting here fighting depression every single day trying not to completely lose myself.
Sometimes I honestly feel like I’ve spent my entire life begging for love from my own sisters while watching them naturally give that love to each other. That’s the part that breaks me the most. Not just the trauma, not just the heartbreak, but the feeling that I was never fully wanted by my own sisters no matter how much I loved them.
Even my mum is heartbroken because she sees how deeply this has affected me. She sees me crying, isolating myself, shutting down, and feeling like I don’t matter. And the saddest part is that friends, strangers, and even people outside my family have shown me more kindness, emotional support, and forgiveness than my own sisters ever have.
After 26 years of feeling unwanted, left out, emotionally unsupported, and carrying trauma mostly alone, I finally reached a breaking point.
All I ever wanted was for my sisters to love me the way I loved them. A hug. Support. Someone checking if I was okay. Someone saying “you matter too.”

Instead, I’ve spent most of my life feeling like the sister nobody truly wanted.
Am I overreacting for being this hurt, or would anyone else feel broken too after carrying this pain for so long?

Hello. I am writing in regards to my niece who will be turning 2 soon.

My sister is a content creator. She travels often to different states for shoots. By often I mean weekly. Her child does not come with her and she is often gone for up to 3 weeks.

The child bounces between my mother, my grandmother, my sister, my brother, the father’s mother, father’s sister, and sometimes me (although I’m in a different state so it’s rare) Probably some friends too. All different households.

Everyone around her enables her into doing this, no one has bat an eye (except for me) and when I try to bring it up to my mother she refuses to talk about it.

I just can’t see this being good for a young toddler’s psyche. She cries the entire time if she is with me. She calls my mom “mama” because she is with her the most. She hates going in the car or even being around my family with my sister present because she thinks she is going to leave.

What can I do?

My daughter is 6 and recently she has been having intrusive thoughts and feels scared. This happens especially at night. She always wants to sleep with me but I try not to do that because then she will get used to it and never want to sleep in her own bed, she says she feels safe with me in my room which I am glad about but I tell her she’s a big girl and needs to sleep in her own bed. I let her sleep with me the night after she sleeps over her grandmas house. But things have been so hard lately. I still lay with her to fall asleep but even with me laying with her she says she feels scared and tells me about intrusive thoughts she has like she’s going to die or I’m going to die. She worries if she accidentally ate something like a staple if she used it for crafts or other things. I reassure her as much as I can that she is safe, she didn’t swallow anything, and she isn’t going to die and that mommy is okay too. The other night she told me she had a thought that her mind is telling her she “wasn’t supposed to be in this world” it broke my heart. I told her she was meant to be here and this world is so much better with her in it. Getting her to sleep is such a challenge. We read her book, I lay with her and play her soothing music but I say everything possible to help her cope with her thoughts like naming her bad thoughts as a bully and gave it a name so she can say “be quiet (insert made up name here) and “you are wrong (say name here). I saw it online and that it can help. I just want to give her relief. And I get so tired putting her to sleep and dread the things I have to do when she finally goes to sleep. Mental illness runs in my family so unfortunately I think she might be struggling with ocd or anxiety. I am diagnosed bipolar and have horrible anxiety constantly. I also tell her she isn’t alone and that everyone has negative thoughts sometimes. Sorry this is a long post but any advice or people who have been through similar things would help greatly. I’m trying not to get to worried but I don’t know what else to do.

I really want to get this off my chest. I was 5 years old when I was groomed. Back then, I used to play with other kids in our neighborhood. Most of the kids where I lived were boys, though I also played with girls some of them didn’t want to play with me. There was this group of kids who were older than me, and I remember one of them was already a teenager. I didn’t really understand what we were doing back then I just followed whatever they did. Sometimes, people would even catch us doing things in dark places.

It makes me so angry, and I regret ever going with them. The past still really haunts me. I hear people twisting the truth, saying I was the one who groomed them, or calling me names like I’m a “whore”. When I was 17, there was this family living in the same apartment building as us. They were fucking peeking at people while they were showering in the bathroom. They lived on the second floor, and the bathroom was right below their unit. There were holes in the bathroom ceiling, and they were peeking at me while I was showering and doing other things. Afaik, they were also peeking at some of my neighbors here too. I told my mom and the landlord about them peeking at me while I showered, and they fixed the holes in their place where they could see inside the bathroom. Those assholes got angry at me just because I fucking told on them and exposed what they were doing.

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I can’t even type some of the words I want to say or say exactly what I really want to do I just got a warning

It’s okay if you don’t believe my story. I just want to express my feelings here, no one here knows me.

What is the general consensus on what occurs to a boy when his mother is a clinical Psychopath? Can you list 3 things?

I’m a therapist who works primarily with kids and teens, and one pattern I see constantly is children being treated for “general anxiety” when they’re actually dealing with OCD.

A lot of pediatric OCD doesn’t look like the stereotypes people expect. It’s not always obvious handwashing or checking. Sometimes it shows up as:

• excessive reassurance-seeking
• confession rituals (“I need to tell you something bad I thought”)
• bedtime fears that never resolve with comfort
• repeated questions that seem irrational but feel urgent to the child
• avoidance that looks like “behavior problems”
• intrusive thoughts that cause shame or panic
• mental rituals parents can’t even see happening

One of the hardest parts for families is that traditional anxiety strategies can accidentally reinforce OCD. Reassurance, avoidance, and accommodation often bring short-term relief but strengthen the cycle long-term.

That’s why accurate assessment matters so much. Anxiety and OCD overlap, but treatment approaches can differ in important ways — especially when ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) is appropriate.

I specialize in helping families sort through:

• Is this anxiety, OCD, or both?
• What behaviors are compulsions vs. coping?
• When is reassurance helping vs. maintaining the cycle?
• How do we support kids without feeding fear?

ERP with children can also look much more collaborative, playful, and developmentally appropriate than many parents expect.

Curious whether other clinicians, parents, or educators here have noticed how often OCD gets missed in kids — especially when symptoms present as perfectionism, emotional dysregulation, or constant worrying.

Hello, I’m a child. I am 11F, and I believe I have some sort of severe mental health disorder. Please answer my questions as best as you can.

Has your child ever expressed WAY too much knowledge of intimacy? Things that most adults would just brush off as, “a smart well-behaved kid”? Well as one of those kids myself, I wish to share my story.

Hello, I’m Ray. I’ve never been raped or sexually abused. I have phone, porn, and self harm addiction. I’m constantly on my phone, watching videos of the sort. I’m on shedtwt, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Reddit. It’s honestly too much for a child to know about. But I’m scarred for life from the things on the internet. Unrestricted internet access, they call it. No supervision over what I watched, did, or acted like. I unfortunately have no empathy, knowledge of “adult” matters, and I’ve always been called well-behaved or mature. I’m now suicidal, a shell of what used to be a smart, gifted, motivated child. But when you are “gifted” your brain thinks of EVERYTHING. Your failures, your mental state, fears, illness, envy, wrath, death, and eventually you’ll wind up in a mental hospital. Has not happened to me yet, but I have really severe anxiety. Be aware, my mom KNOWS of this. She never has taken me to a doctor. She literally said herself that I have anxiety, I have severe panic attacks, breakdowns, barely interact socially. I’m not normal, never will be. I’m jealous of kids who have a diagnosis. Their situation got bad enough that their parents actually started caring. My mom may love me, but she’s negligent. Toxic but loving. A mom who neglects your mental health to the point you’re suicidal to the core. Not even an ounce of empathy left in you.

So my granddaughter was pantsed at school during lunch. She is in the 5th grade.

Parents went to talk to the principal and was told the situation would be dealt with. Fast forward and the girl was not suspended but talked to and chalked it up as playing around.

We are upset because we have seen how this incident has affected my granddaughter. She isnt herself.

What can we do?

I dont know what else to do she treats me like she hates me. She’s more of a daddy’s girl but sometimes she hits her dad as well. Im worried because its been a year since she started kicking slapping and punching me i tried to just stop her but she’s really strong and i dont want to hurt her so instead i just slap her hand if she slaps or kicks and tell her not to do that or else ill continue to slap the hand. I dont know what else to do she wont stop. In public she does that to me and she also lies down the floor and cry. She always has some sort of tantrum/ meltdown every hour. Shes speech delay but shes starting to talk very little by little. I love her but it hurts me that other people see what she does to me. Also we cant afford therapy. Im thinking maybe she has ADHD? Because its either shes crying or just mad at me and wont stop hurting and even spitting

Hello, hopefully someone can offer us some advice or can relate by having a similar experience, but we're slowly but surely getting to the end of our wits with this.

Our son (5) is generally well behaved, empathetic and well socialized. He plays in team sports and he has adapted easily to those situations. We take him to any playground or friends group and he is easily able to play nicely or make friends with pretty much any kid. Overall we think he is well adjusted.

Except for one wrinkle...

Our next door neighbors also have a boy, about 6 yo. He's not a bad kid perse, but he doesn't seem to understand personal space, he's very touchy with other kids, and tends to get in their faces. He grabs things from other kids without asking. He doesn't seem to get pretend play and ends up getting physical with others. He has a tendency to get very close to other kids and speak loudly right in their face - not willingly yelling, but those are just his conversation skills. He seems unable to pick up on the social cues kids have at this age and does not appear to actively listen when told by his parents or others. Perhaps on their own these behaviours are not a big deal but put together they quickly get on your nerves. As such, he doesn't get along with most kids in the neighborhood, as he seems to rub them and some of their parents the wrong way.

When they see each other, our son is completely mesmerised by him. If he shows up while our son is playing with other kids, he completely forgets about them and only plays with this one kid. We've had to apologize to our play dates and family at times because this kid showed up during dates and again and again our son just forgot about his other friends/family and got mentally stuck with this kid.

We're also next door neighbors. This kid hears us leave our place or return home and out he pops. Countless times we've been delayed going out or bringing our son back in because he simply stops listening to us whenever they meet in our building hallway.

And maybe we could live with this little obsession of his if he didn't pick up all of the annoying behaviours from this kid. When our son plays with other kids, they appear to be imaginative, they have nice pretend games, they get along, respect each other's spaces and requests, ask one another nicely when they want something etc. When our son plays with this other kid, he becomes his mirror image and picks up the same behaviors: they get in each other's faces, grab each other, getting physical and holding hands constantly, talking gibberish, grabbing things from each other and that's their way of having fun. I watch them play and just get annoyed, because they don't play like other kids or have a normal interaction. Together they just act, for lack of a better word, stupid.

Those bahviours then come into our home. He starts grabbing things from his little brother's hands whereas before he didn't. As mentioned above, completely forgets about others around him. For a few hours after seeing this kid he exhibits the same lack of active listening. On the days he spends any considerable amount of time with this kid, our son has a meltdown.

We've gotten to the point that we can't wait for these neighbors to move. They're nice people and seem like a good family, and far from me to say how they should raise their kid. But at this point, what's the solution? Pull our son in the house every time this kid shows up? Tell our son he needs to play with the other kids otherwise we're going home and actually follow through with that? Tell the neighbors our kids need a break from each other?

Like I said he's not a bad kid, and we don't want him to be made to feel rejected, but it's getting to point where our son is becoming obsessed with playing with him to the detriment of his relationship with other kids. Every solution we've thought of seems unfeasible, either because of their proximity (difficult to pull them from each other because they meet so easily) or because we end up looking like A-holes if we get more drastic.

Any advice or support is greatly appreciated!

My son is 9 years old and is very smart but has recently been falling behind due to refusing to work. He was going to in-person public school up until March. I pulled him out to do virtual school because he was not learning. I would get calls from the school psychologist almost every day that my son’s teacher would call for backup because my son would become enraged. He’d bang his fists on the desk and scream, flip chairs and desks over, and injuring himself. The psychologist would walk with him and he said he’d rather be in heaven than to be at school. He refused to learn.

We thought virtual learning would be helpful because he said that school makes his anxiety really bad. Now that he’s home, he still can’t pay attention and isn’t doing any work. He has regressed in reading and writing noticeably, along with other subjects. His psychiatrist put him on a stimulant along with his mood stabilizer and anti depressant. The stimulant made him extremely angry so we took him off.

Last week he came to the kitchen for lunch and I noticed scratches all over his arms. I asked how he got them and he was saying that he was hoping to bleed enough to not be here anymore because he has to do work. I told him we’d have a visit to the psychiatric hospital to be seen and he agreed, saying he just wants to be happy. I felt like the psychiatrist there was great and very knowledgeable. I felt very positive. Her recommendation was for him to double the adderall because the adhd is what is causing the outbursts.

Today he really struggled with school and I told him he had to at least stay by the computer to listen but could have a fidget, draw, etc. He said there is no point of being here anymore if this is what life is about. He grabbed a knife and tried to stem himself. I took the knife and he tried running out the front door.

I am feeling overwhelmed, depressed, and am losing hope of him living a normal, happy life. I hate knowing that he’s so unhappy. I am hoping somebody has some kind of advice or a similar story with a happy ending. My next step would be completely homeschooling him myself but the psychiatrist recommended him going back to in person school as it is good for him.

My daughter is 6 years old and currently in kindergarten. She has been stealing things from her siblings, friends, our neighbors, family, and classmates for over 2 years now and it is progressively getting worse.

It started out as small things such as hair clips, toys, or trinkets, but has evolved to bigger more valuable things. The most recent being her classmates hearing aids. She came downstairs this morning wearing them and lied about where she got them before admitting that she stole them. We have no clue how long they’ve been in her possession since she won’t say.

She will steal things that she knows are of great value from her siblings, such as things that a loved one might have given them or a priced possession, and destroy it. She stole some handmade dolls from her step sister that her dad brought back from Jamaica and ripped them apart.

The other issue is that she’s very cute and sweet, but extremely manipulative. Manipulative in a way that exceeds her age. She also lies with impunity. We will have her on camera doing something and will still deny it. If she does admit to something she shows no remorse for her actions.

We have tried everything. We’ve taken toys from her, made her do chores to earn money to pay people back for the things she’s broken, made her write sentences or write apology letters, been stern, had heart to heart talks, in school suspension. Nothing works and we’re desperate at this point.

We’ve also had her evaluated but they said she’s too young to diagnose. She also puts on her charm when she’s been at this evaluations so they aren’t able to see the behavior we’re seeing.

I would love some advice on how to help her because we’re at a loss. We’re taking her to the police station this afternoon to have an officer talk to her about stealing but I doubt it’s going to work. Please help!