Yes, there is an OCD-treatment related reason why it's important not to let a child's OCD affect the way the household is run. The more power you give to anxiety disorders, the worse they become. If you change your life to fit around an anxiety disorder like OCD, it will only get bigger and badder until you can't fit your life around it anymore, because there's no room for your life, just the anxiety. The reason is that when you change your habits to suit the anxiety, it perpetuates the anxiety. It tells the patient subconsciously, whether child or adult, that their anxiety is valid and there is good reason for them to be anxious. Even if you don't intend for that to be the message, when you accommodate to someone's anxiety, that is the message exactly. You are saying, "We are going to change our routine because you are anxious, and your anxiety is for a good reason. Because you have a good reason to be anxious, we will change our routine, and we will all be safer because of it. You should keep being anxious to keep us safe." On the other hand, when you DON'T change your household routine to accommodate the anxiety disorder, it shows the patient that they don't need to be anxious. The world won't come to a grinding halt for their anxiety, and yet even despite that, everything will usually turn out okay. It's called exposure - you expose the person to their fear, and when nothing bad happens, they begin to subconsciously realize that their fears are unfounded. It is part of a complete treatment that helps the patient slowly but surely defeat their anxious thoughts. So if the child (or teen, or adult) with OCD wants everyone to wash their hands before touching a bowl of fruit in the middle of the table, for example, if you all did that then you would be reinforcing their anxiety about the germs on the fruit. On the other hand, if you all just keep going about your daily business and not washing your hands obsessively, when you all DON'T drop dead of the plague it slowly teaches the person that even when people don't give in to their fear, they still end up okay, so maybe their fears aren't so real after all. Hope that helps!