In my former life, I used to be a middle school teacher. Each year, I was blessed with up to 200 pre-teens every year, with up to 200 different personalities and difficulties. As teachers, we’re prepared for all kinds of different problems: ADHD being the most common, but there are many possibilities. One diagnosis that gets frequently overlooked is OCD. Most people don’t look at a 6th grader and think to themselves that that poor child is battling OCD, largely because it’s underdiagnosed in that age range. The prevailing symptoms of OCD aren’t as easily detectable amongst middle-school aged children, so it gets overlooked as a possibility, and thus it goes untreated.
This book can actually be a great resource for anybody that works or loves a kid in the middle grades. Not only can it be used to help identify any student that might be struggling with OCD, it provides excellent tips on how to manage the compulsions. There are a huge number of great exercises included in this book that can assist not only an OCD child, but pretty much any kid in middle school.