Natasha Daniels, mother of three children with OCD and as a therapist specializing in these disorders, hosts this highly regarded podcast. Here's our review.
Credit: AT Parenting Survival Podcast
My autistic son Andrew amazes me with his capabilities and accomplishments. I often find myself swelling with pride. But, of course, it’s not always easy. His co-occurring obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), in particular, can take over our lives and wreak havoc, causing deep anguish and pain.
During this OCD Awareness Week, it’s helpful for families grappling with OCD to understand what we can do to ease the journey, both for ourselves and for our child.
Natasha Daniels hosts the highly regarded AT Parenting Survival podcast. She is an Arizona-based pediatric OCD and anxiety expert who intimately understands the challenges, both as the mother of three children with OCD and as a therapist specializing in these disorders.
Growing up, both her father and eldest sister suffered from mental illness, propelling her into the mental health field. She had acute social anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder. Her children, ranging in ages from 21 to 13, have had their own complex journeys, with sensory processing challenges, panic attacks, social anxiety and avoidant and restrictive eating, in addition to their OCD. In her own words, they are her biggest teachers who have driven her passion to help others.
Natasha started her career as a general therapist and built a thriving practice. Shortly after publishing her book How to Parent Your Anxious Toddler in 2015, she also started a blog that increasingly focused on her passion for helping families grappling with anxiety and OCD.
While enjoying her writing, she realized she was a natural teacher who wanted to speak more about OCD and anxiety. This led her to make the decision to close her practice and have a broader impact by reaching a global audience. In 2017, she launched the AT Parenting Survival podcast.
The “AT” stands for “Anxious Toddler and Teen”, and the focus is truly on “Parenting Survival”: Natasha’s goal is to support those of us raising kids with OCD and anxiety and help our children learn to resist the overpowering urge to engage in compulsive rituals driven by their obsessive thoughts and feelings. Not “scratching that itch” disrupts OCD and takes away its power. As both a parent and therapist, she aims to humanize OCD and be raw, authentic and vulnerable rather than clinical and sterile.
To help us understand the difference between OCD and anxiety, Natasha explains that while intrusive thoughts and fears earmark both and often co-exist, they are classified as separate mental health disorders. Children with anxiety disorders generally avoid their fears and try to distract themselves by thinking of something else, while those with OCD actively engage in repetitive behaviours to try and find relief from their intrusive, unwanted thoughts.
I have listened to several episodes, including:
Natasha is knowledgeable, informative, compassionate, understanding, and supportive. She knows what we are going through.
This podcast is about OCD and anxiety, not autism. But tune into Episode 219, How to Help a Child with Both Autism and OCD, to listen to her guest, Dr. Rebecca Sachs, one of North America’s leading psychologists specializing in both conditions.
AT Parenting Survival is one of the top 100 parenting podcasts on iTunes and is sponsored by NOCD, a well-known resource that offers online OCD therapy and in-between-session support. To date, Natasha has recorded over 400 episodes, and a new episode airs every Tuesday.
Since 2015, Natasha has helped over 8 million parents. In addition to the podcast:
She also has a popular YouTube channel @natashadanielsocdtherapist and a weekly newsletter and has written several books. She is active on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and X @tparentingsurvival), with tens of thousands of followers.
Parents of children with both autism and OCD are increasingly asking Natasha for help. Fortunately for us, she is planning to dedicate more time to these co-occurring conditions in the future.
Natasha counsels us to focus on:
Natasha has followed her own advice, and all three of her children are doing well today. As she says, “OCD is irrational, but we parents can get our lives back. It’s hard work, but it’s possible.” Rational advice indeed!
Keep up with your baby's development, get the latest parenting content and receive special offers from our partners
Jan Stewart is a highly regarded mental health and neurodiversity advocate. Her brutally honest memoir Hold on Tight: A Parent’s Journey Raising Children with Mental Illness describes her emotional roller coaster story parenting two children with multiple mental health and neurodevelopmental disorders. Her mission is to inspire and empower parents to persevere through the most difficult of times and have hope, as well as to better educate their families, friends, health care professionals, educators and employers. Jan chairs the Board of Directors at Kerry’s Place Autism Services, Canada’s largest autism services provider, and was previously Vice Chair at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. She spent most of her career as a senior Partner with the global executive search firm Egon Zehnder. Jan is a Diamond Life Master in bridge and enjoys fitness, genealogy and dance.