7 Year Old Son - Signs of OCD?

[Guest guest]

My son is 7 years old and for the past year and especially more recently he

has been doing odd things.

At first he did this mouth stretching thing, then he started doing a body

shaking, twitching thing and now he will blink his eyes and move his lips.

He does this throughout the day. He has also started doing a touching thing.

If he touches you with one hand he touches you with the other, if he bumps

something with one foot, he bumps it with the other foot. He ' s learned to

do this slyly so that most people don ' t notice, but I see him do this all

the time. We've asked him why he has to touch with the other side and he

says if he doesn't he will " feel weird. "

I watched him eat his lunch one day. It was quite an experience. He was

watching TV and eating a hamburger and French fries. It was a constant thing

that seems like it would make one tired. I watched him hold his hamburger

with one hand and then move it to the other. The big thing was the french

fries. He would put it in his mouth with one hand and then I would seem him

leave it in his mouth and then finish up with the other hand. If he did not

do this he would put it in with both hands.

I've asked him questions and there doesn't seem to be a fear anywhere. Just

an, I feel like I need to do it or I will feel weird. A couple of times my

husband has stopped him from doing the second thing and he got anxious and

couldn't move on until he did it.

Are these beginning signs of OCD?

My current plan is to just watch him and see how things progress... It seems

like he would do well with skills from CBT.

I'm also curious as to how much changing his diet and schedule will help.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Julee Huy