Son's Collecting - is it OCD?

Hello: I am new to this forum and just looking for some answers.

My son is 11 (will be 12 next month). He is officially diagnosed with anxiety and tourette's syndrome. He is medicated for both. When he was 4 years old (8 years ago) he started getting into Pokemon. He has collected cards now for 8 years and has done everything from video games, action figures, clothing, etc along the way. The past year or two his "obsession" with the card collecting has really escalated to the point that every time we are going to go to Walmart/Target he asks to buy more cards. He has found online trading websites where he trades cards by mail. He watches You Tube videos for hours each day of people opening packs of cards. Every birthday/Christmas hint list is nothing but Pokemon items to the point where all of our relatives are now refusing to buy one more Pokemon thing for him.

He is a straight A student with no discipline problems. He is socially fine other than a couple friends jabbing him about still liking pokemon.

My husband wants us to cut off all pokemon cold turkey. This came to a head when he wanted to spend $100 that he has saved from allowance to buy some booster box thing with 36 packs of pokemon cards. My husband flew off the handle because that is a lot of money. We are struggling with the question of should we control what he spends his hard earned money on? Is that right?

Has this collecting thing turned into OCD? Do we ignore it and hope he'll eventually out grow it? That is what we have been hoping for 8 years now. Does he need to see a therapist to help him deal? I have no idea what the answer is. Hoping some parents out there might have some insight for me. A good friend and my sister have suggested that if the collecting is not causing harm in his life, to just let it be.

Suggestions?

Thank you so much!

E

I'm not a parent, nor do I have OCD traits. These are just my uninformed thoughts.

rd_sutton wrote:We are struggling with the question of should we control what he spends his hard earned money on? Is that right?

Parenting-wise, no. If he wanted to buy something illegal, or something that affects the rest of the family, like a puppy, then that'd be different, but here he's saved hard and I can't see any good reason to pull parent rank. Plus learning responsible spending is part of growing up. It sounds like he's got a good savings habit, whatever the motivation behind it, and that's to be encouraged. As well as spending and not just hoarding.

Has this collecting thing turned into OCD?

I don't know if that's how OCD works. It might be that he has OCD anyway and the collecting is how he's manifesting the symptoms.

Does he need to see a therapist to help him deal?

Is he currently seeing anyone with regard to the anxiety? I think it might be a good idea for you to see someone to talk to about it in a professional capacity, but not necessarily for him.

A good friend and my sister have suggested that if the collecting is not causing harm in his life, to just let it be.

That's how I'd lean, too. It may not be my career choice to become the world's leading Pokemon expert, but someone's got to do it, and I expect there will be degrees in it by the time he gets to University age. But I honestly don't know where the crossover between passion and obsession is. I do strongly suspect that if you cut off Pokemon, that the good discipline you have now will go out of the window overnight and it might be very hard to get back, causing far bigger problems than could be solved.