Last night, my friend in London and I compared notes on raising children with obsessive tendencies. We each have a compulsive child, both boys, and it was funny – sort of – to share our stories.

“The towel needs to be folded this way and the pajamas go here, not there. It’s gotten much better, but he used to have a fit if things weren’t the way he thought they needed to be,” she told me about her son, who is just 6.

I couldn’t help but laugh as I empathized with her, recalling similar behavior in my own house. I told her about my 4-year-old son’s desperate need – five minutes before we have to leave for school, of course – to find a certain pair of socks or light blue stone or washcloth that for some inexplicable reason needs be taken to school that day.

We all know misery loves company, and so we took our time sharing our stories. But at some point we ended up wondering aloud what was really on our minds: Will our boys outgrow this? Is there something really wrong here? Are they about to be slapped with some label?

Recently at a lecture, a child therapist told a disturbing story about parents who were actually disappointed when told that there was nothing wrong with their child. Apparently they were eager to find some sort of diagnosis to attach to their child to justify whatever deficiencies they saw.

I certainly don’t know any parents like that, but many people I know could easily be accused of taking their children to therapists for problems that if left for a year or two, might just naturally resolve. “Might” is the operative word here, because you never know if the problems might not resolve, and then you’ve lost a critical year or two to address the issues.

“The younger the kid, the quicker the fix, is what I’ve been told,” said a friend of mine who describes her daughter as having a weak upper body and low muscle tone. Her 4-year-old daughter sees an occupational therapist once a week. “Would she fall apart if she didn’t have access to this therapy? Of course not. But she might not love the playground and participating in gymnastics classes the ways she does now. And anyway, she loves going and we can afford the treatment. Why shouldn’t she go?”

Many parents I know pride themselves on taking a close look at their children’s strengths and weaknesses, and wondering what, if anything, should be done to help their children overcome those weak spots. Could the uncoordinated child benefit from physical therapy? Could the child with a slight lisp benefit from speech therapy? Should the child who has difficulty making friends be taken to play therapy?

Occasionally I find myself analyzing my children in such a fashion, and on more than one occasion, it is my children’s teachers who have deftly pointed out their weak spots. Regardless of whether I have spotted the weakness myself, or been informed of it on report day, I always have two separate, competing responses. On the one hand, I always ask myself, what ever happened to natural variances? So what if he isn’t the strongest or the most organized or the most social? But just as these thoughts are racing through my mind, I am also thinking about how I should go about finding the right person to do an evaluation. When will my child notice this weakness? How will it impact his self-esteem?

“Taking your kid to be evaluated is a self-fulfilling prophecy,” insists my husband, who thinks that therapists will most likely find some sort of problem that needs addressing if they are brought a child to assess. He believes that children’s self-esteem comes from overcoming obstacles.

The headmaster at my son’s school suggests that we be a step behind our children and not rush out to fix every little minor fault. “If the child’s development is a year behind in a specific area, then there is reason to be concerned and begin some sort of treatment, but there are plenty of parents who overreact,” he says.

It does seem rather au courant in New York to have your children in some sort of treatment. I can hardly think of anyone in the New York of my childhood who underwent any sort of special therapy, yet today, among my friends who have three children, I can hardly think of anyone who doesn’t have one child in some sort of treatment.

But I must say that in my husband’s native country, South Africa, and specifically in Cape Town, where we spend a few months every year, there are just as many child-oriented therapists as there are in New York, as well as teachers and parents looking out for weak spots in their children. So perhaps it isn’t New York, but rather just a trend in parenting and education.

As for my friend’s son and my own little obsessive, of course they will most likely outgrow their fixations. These are, after all, the years when we parents hope our children work through their compulsions. There are days when I wish I could slip him a little Prozac – when I’ve struggled to find the particular T-shirt he needs, or have suffered through a long tantrum because I brought the red cup, not the blue cup.

But that doesn’t mean he’ll be obsessing over shirts, cups, and colors in a few years. At least I hope it doesn’t.