Tips For Caring For Your Child With Tourette Syndrome

Tourette syndrome is a neurological disorder characterized by the presence of uncontrollable tics. The tips that we are going to present next will allow parents to better cope with this disease.

Caring for a child with Tourette syndrome is not an easy task. This neurological disease usually manifests itself before the age of 18, during childhood or adolescence and its main characteristic is the presence of motor and phonic tics.

Motor tics are more common on the face. Your child may blink many times very quickly, pinch his nose, or make multiple faces. However, these involuntary spasms can also be present in the neck, trunk and extremities.

Another type of tics are phonics. These are manifested by grunting, clearing, yelling, or inappropriate phrases. They are all uncontrollable. So if your child has Tourette syndrome, scolding him or trying to make him understand that he should moderate it is not going to help him.

Next, we are going to visualize a fragment of a 2008 film entitled Front on the class  in which we can see how everything we have discussed about Tourette syndrome manifests itself.

Help him develop personal relationships

Caring for your child with Tourette syndrome does not mean that they should isolate themselves from other children until the tics subside or disappear, something that will happen naturally as they age. Isolation can encourage other colleagues to discriminate against you because of how you are.

Also, be prepared to deal with teasing and hurtful comments that other classmates may give your child. Talking with him and helping him deal with these types of situations will be very important, since children with Tourette syndrome are socially immature.

To encourage your child to develop their personal relationships, you can start to put into practice the tips that we recommend below:

• Enroll him in activities that involve a group as this will help him make friends and develop his social skills.
• Talk to the teacher and explain that your child has Tourette syndrome. In this way, he will be able to help the rest of the children in the class understand what is happening to him, reducing teasing and rejection.

• Take advantage of everyday interactions to teach and train him in social skills. For example, during the meeting with a neighbor or with a classmate when going to do the shopping.

Cultivate your self-esteem

Taking care of your child with Tourette syndrome will allow you to verify that their self-esteem is very fragile. Due to the tics that annoy his classmates and other problems of an intellectual nature (dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia) his self-confidence can be very low.

Taking all this into account, it is convenient that you pay attention to some tips that should be applied at home. However, it would also be convenient if they were put into practice in the classroom, so discussing them with the teacher will be a great help.

• Propose tasks or exercises that you know he is capable of doing. If you tell him to do something that is beyond his ability, your child will be frustrated.
• In class, it will be important to bring him to the board when you are sure he will do well. This will increase your self-confidence and your peers will not tease or reject you.
• Give him responsibilities that are within his means. This way you will promote their autonomy and make them feel safe.

Encourage him to do fun activities

Children with Tourette syndrome are more prone to anxiety. Therefore, doing fun and stimulating activities can reduce it considerably.

Maybe your child likes art or playing some physical sport. Ideally, the activity you do will excite you. If you impose one on him, the chances are that his anxiety will increase and he will not be amused.

An advantage of carrying out these types of activities when caring for your child with Tourette syndrome is that you will find that their tics also decrease. This happens because, when your child is more anxious or stressed, the involuntary spasms increase in intensity and frequency.

Caring for your child with Tourette syndrome can seem complicated at first. But, if you carry out the aforementioned practice, you will discover that with these tips everything becomes much easier.