Children and teens with Tourette Syndrome often suffer from poor self-image, anxiety, loneliness, and social isolation. It can be hard to understand at first. Tourettes in children and tic behaviors is treatable by learning life long coping strategies through play therapies and mindfulness practices.
The struggle is real, so a child therapist can help boost your child’s self-esteem
Teachers can get frustrated and it can be hard without a child therapist on the team. Also, Tourettes in children and tics can make them more prone to bullying and social ostracizing. Sometimes, even teachers get to a point of frustration where they label your child “too much” or the “bad” kid. Overall, therapy can help your child feel safe at school, help teaches know what to do, and provide a supportive success plan. Tics are uncontrollable, but are treatable through mindfulness and play therapies. Mindfulness and child play therapies provide positive coping tools for parent and child with tics. If a child has suppressed emotions like anxiety at school due to sensory overload, they will benefit from a relationship with a child therapist to learn holistic play therapy skills to release these emotions in healthy ways. Studies show that tics are a urge that have an emotion under the behavior.
Reduce tics naturally and build lifelong coping tools
More so, suppression of tics using medication can have side effects. Now, we are not saying medication is bad. But, as a holistic group of therapists, we don’t recommend it at first. Instead, our group of child and family therapists focus on holistic lifelong coping tools that your child can use the rest of their life. Instead of seeking medication, which has side effects, you can seek natural medical for mental health.
The team at Wisdom Within Counseling specializes in options beyond talk counseling for children needing creative, art, yoga, music, and drama therapies.
Types of Tics
Thera are different tics that each person expericences.
Motor tics – movement bursts, nose scrunch, head jerk, arm shake, eye darting
Vocal tics – sound, throat clearing, grunt, shout, barking, swallowing
Body movements – dance movement, jumping, touching objects
Complex movements – sentences, series of words
Self-harming tics – slapping one’s self, hitting
Criteria for Tourettes – Multiple motor movements and at least vocal tic over longer than one year as well as functionally impairing. Typically appears in young children 5-7 years of age, and even 10. Working with a child therapist can be soothing for the whole family and provide holistic, whole person guidance.
Identify the tigger in tics and stress in life
In a school setting, there can be a lot of stressors for children with Tourettes and tics. For one, they may experiences handwriting difficulties that lead to insecurities. As well, they may have more social conflicts as behaviors may be bothersome to others. Next, transitions from one classroom to the next, sensory overstimulation, a loud cafeteria, and sleep issues can make a child with tics feel very overwhelmed. If a child’s stress responses increases, you will see an increase in tics. For instance, a test anxiety may cause a child with tics to yell, “Shut up,” out of anxiety. A teacher may see this as disruptive and send them to the principal’s without proper understanding. Tourettes in children and tic behaviors can be helped by working with a holistic child therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling.
Parental nurturing and self-care for Tourettes in children and tics
Also, a parent who has high levels of untreated anxiety, fear, or OCD may see their child develop more tics. Anxiety can can be passed down, as the child takes on their parent’s anxiety. So, a child therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling helps parents reduce their stress and anxiety, which directly has a positive impact on their child’s tics. To support lower stress, parents are encouraged to practice self-care, have a date night, read a book, goto yoga, take a bath, and seek their own holistic support network.
Our team nurtures and supports both parent and child at Wisdom Within Counseling.
What is are some recommendations you can do today?
To start, ignore tics that don’t need attention. Plus, pointing all of them out creates high anxiety in a child. They feel scrutinized. Next, parents can go into a classroom at the beginning of the year and educate the students in the class on their child’s tics. Doing education in the classroom helps your child feel safe and reduces bullying. Also, parents and caregivers can keep a journal of when tics increase and decrease to better understand environment. Journaling supports understanding the life stressors that trigger an increase in tics. Also, parents can bring their tic journal to Wisdom Within Counseling to better understand how stress impacts Tourettes in children and tic behaviors.
Interventions the team of child and family therapists at Wisdom Within Counseling use:
Now, when helping children with tic disorders, we focus on emotionally focused therapies and child-centered play therapies. A child with anxiety and tic behaviors can use painting, art, movement, yoga, drama, outdoor therapies boost self-esteem. At Wisdom Within Counseling in Southeastern Connecticut, we see the whole child. And, we help children and parents focus on holistic mind-body connections when it comes to coping tools for tics. Plus, parent-child therapies lower family anxiety and stress and foster connection and playfulness. For instance, this can be a parent and child playing a game together with the therapist. Or, it could be a relaxation or breathing skill the child therapist teaches to both parent a child.
On that note, mindfulness mediation helps parents and children gain detailed awareness of sensations of the body and mind to know when a tic is coming on.
In play therapy for children with tics, a therapist steps into teaching self-awareness. Now, self-awareness is a lifelong coping strategies that your child can take into their adult years. For instance, a child can notice their back, neck, their hands, and build mind-body connection. A child can learn to get to know body sensations and feelings in themselves that signal a tic urge coming.
To begin your child with tics in therapy to learn positive coping tools, book a phone consult below.
Therapy treatment (integrate these tips at home, at school, and in therapy)
Focus On Playful Strategies at Home
What should we avoid? Well, avoid punishment and rewarding tics. This is not a behavior that needs to be rewarded or punished. On that note, do not give your child a prize for not have a tic. That creates suppression, which is not as positive as replacing the behavior. Also, punishment only creates lower self-esteem, shame, guilt, frustration, anger, and inner criticism. If you find yourself exhausted or wanting some support, the team at Wisdom Within Counseling would love to help your family.
So, focus on lifelong coping strategies that can help a child fool support and body confidence.
Be understanding verses trying to stop the tic. When dealing with problematic tics, teachers and parents can say, “I know you want to work on this behavior. Do you have any ideas of how you can get playful here? How can I help you learn a strategy?” Focus on the environment, the stress, and what is going on before the tic behavior. Is anxiety high? Are people telling or talking gently? Is the environment chaotic or calm? A holistic child and family therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling can help support coping outlets for stress and strategies for dealing with tics.
In child therapy in East Lyme, Connecticut, we help children connect to their feelings
Furthermore, the team of child and family therapists at Wisdom Within Counseling in Southeastern Connecticut seek to understand the feeling beneath. For instance, this can be of anxiety, fear, worry, or stress under the tic. In therapy, your child can play, use art, yoga, movement, and drama therapies to feel safe exploring their tics and triggers.
A child therapist will help you child understand and know the underlying thought
For instance, “I have to do this movement for everything to be okay.” Sometimes, children feel they have to make the movement. Other children may feel an obsession to keep doing something. Maybe, they are focused and playing a video game. Or, they made a mistake. So, therapy helps child who feel like. “they have to do something over and over” to have outlets and coping tools. Essentially, a child has anxiety and develops bodily rituals in an attempt to self-soothe. Remember, your child is not alone, or broken. Nothing is wrong with them. And, children with Tourettes can live a happy life. So, holistic therapy supports healthy self-esteem in children with Tourettes.
As holistic child and family therapists, we seek to understand environmental stress on tic behaviors before trying medication.
See the cause and increase in tics and stressors like sensory overstimulation, parental anxiety, school stress, and sibling conflict. We want to make the environment where tics happen more frequently, much more like the environment where the tics happen least.
Tourettes in children and tic behaviors happen more in stressful environments.
For instance, say a child with tics doesn’t like loud noises, but has to goto the cafeteria daily for lunch that is noisy. Due to the additional noise, sensory overload occurs, and a child’s tics are much more visible. As holistic therapists, we may work with the school to find this child a smaller, quiet classroom where they can enjoy lunch with two of their close friends. Lifestyle accommodations deeply help with Tourettes in children and tic behaviors.
Build Positive Coping Tools For Children
We work with the child to find another movement that is positive and nurturing, to replace the tic movement, even more so when it negatively impacts friends and peers.
Mindfulness Skills & Self-Awareness
To do this, we are using body centered mindfulness to help children become aware of when the tic is coming on. We help parents feel calm and confident parenting their child with tics.
When supporting Tourettes in children and tic behaviors, we support the parent child relationship and bond.
As well, Wisdom Within Counseling in East Lyme, Connecticut support parents and children in bonding. Often, when a parent learns their child has Tourettes in children and tic behaviors, it can be scary. Sometimes, a parent blames themselves or feels guilty. And, it is common for some parents to also have Tourettes and tic behaviors.
So, our holistic therapists support a loving, safe parent child relationship.
Holistic therapy sessions for Tourettes in children and tic behaviors may include parent child painting, or parent child walks. Also, your child’s therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling can support you as a parent in advocating for their child. This could be in the school system, at camp, with family, and with other parents. And, our holistic child therapists work with teachers to understand their classroom struggles.
When it comes to Tourettes in children and tic behaviors, your child’s therapist will teach lifelong relaxation skills
At Wisdom Within Counseling in Southeastern Connecticut, our team of child and family therapists talk with parents and teach self-soothing, co-regulation, relaxation tools for at home, parent-child deep breathing, guided imagery, skills for calming the parasympathetic nervous system, and lowering stress right in session. The team at Wisdom Within Counseling in Niantic, Connecticut specialize in teaching holistic mindfulness skills to families and supporting children with tics using child-centered play therapies.
To start, click the button below for a phone consultation for child therapy. Tourettes in children and tic behaviors is treatable through holistic stress outlets.
Holistic child therapy helps builds self-confidence and coping tools for anxiety!
Holistic Skills For Confidence Outside of Child Therapy:
Creative therapies support coping tools for Tourettes in children and tic behaviors because they build positive, holistic outlets for stress.
Also, some parents who are looking to go a non medication route want holistic therapies for their child’s lifelong coping tools. So, they choose to avoid medication for children due to possible side effects. As well, some studies note that stimulants and ADHD medications can make tics worse. So, at Wisdom Within Counseling in Southeastern Connecticut, we support you in a medication free approach. And, your child’s therapist will focus on helping your child understand their emotions under the tic behavior.
Make sure your child has at least two safe people in all environments to help them relax
Help your child have supports at school and camps in the summer. On this note, a child needs at least two safe people in every environment. Ie, school psychologist, teacher, and someone the child respects that they have a good relationship with.
What are lifestyle changes that can impact Tourettes in children and tic behaviors?
As well, parents and caregivers may take lifestyle steps to reduce stress. And, these things take time, so be gentle with yourself as a parent. You can reduce caffeine and be aware of sensitives and reduce exposure to fluorescent light. As well, children with Tourettes in children and tic behaviors may be sensitive to perfumes, processed food, artificial and sweeteners, and artificial flavors. You may want to eat or organic food. As well, laughter is the best medicine.
Find ways to be playful and laugh as a family, and make movement for your child fun.
Don’t make Tourettes in children and tic behaviors their whole life. Help them feel normal too. Enroll your child in activities like dance, drama club, cooking, tennis, basketball, and playing tag. Overall, exercise and play activities promote positive coping tools for lowering stress and boosting self-confidence in a child with tics.
