15 year old daughter

Hello Nicholeen!
I attempted to send this last week but am not sure if it worked because I wasn’t given an opportunity to edit and submit. But…here we go!

My family has been implementing TSG
for a little over a month now. Though rocky roads in the beginning, I'm finding that the skills we're learning are a blessing to our family as we are
experiencing more structure and peace
in our home! Thank you.

I'm writing today with a question regarding my fifteen year old daughter. She’s a beautifully brilliant and creative
gal, who experiences high levels of
anxiety and OCD behaviors.

When we first began TSG the anxiety,
anger outbursts, and refusals sky
rocketed. Though better now (as she’s learning to use the disagree appropriately rule) I questioned momentarily if these were signs of ODD, but friends and family encouraged that these were typical teenage girl responses.

We got to the rule of 3 a couple times that first week. However, when instructed to take calming breaths, my dear daughter goes
into a panic, and doesn't seem to be
able to follow a basic instruction to
breath. Also, the continuous reading of the script for the rule of 3 (which I appreciate) is overwhelming
to her. She's already in downstairs brain
at this point, goes quickly into complete meltdown mode, and doesn't seem to be able to make an intentional decision to follow basic instructions.

I want to set her up for success.

What other in-the-moment calming
instructions can you recommend or
ideas for getting back to the upstairs
brain?

We've found it helpful to use other tools, like time in her room to
journal her thoughts and feelings before she escalate even higher. It's not time efficient, but it does helps. However, my dear daughter will write for hours long to avoid having to do chores etc. I realize that l'Il need to set some limits.

Do you recommend journaling as a calm down tool and have any suggestions on
how to use it, and with what steps in the TSG process?

Also, how do you recommend adjusting
the TSG program for a teenager who has high levels of anxiety and OCD?
When she's stuck in an OCD hand washing, it
seems next to impossible to get her to follow simple instructions. This OCD monster is trying to rule to our home. I refuse to let it, but need more skills and tools for how to conquer this intrusive
beast! Any suggestions for how to
implement TSG with OCD would be
much appreciated!

Thank you for your time and attention! 🙂