When Your Child has a Tic Attack in Public

If you’re reading this you’re either the grown up version of that child, as I am, or the parent of a child with frequent tic attacks.  Grown up ticcy kids, reach out with any unique insights you want to share!

Parents, step one is de-stimulate.  Why?  Because tics are nervous system related, they are positive feedback loops through the nervous system.  Creating a calm, low-stim environment with dim lights, low noise, stillness, etc., is rarely a bad idea.

Real world example:  You’re in the grocery store with your son and he can’t stop shaking his head.  It’s getting bad, he’s complaining of a serious headache, and has become ultra irritable.  The tic attack as near-triggered a rage attack.  You still have half the list of groceries to gather. What do you do?

Ideally, this is where you get to practice de-stimulation.  Leave the groceries, walk to the car with your son.  Get in, lay the seats back, put the visors down, it’s chill time.  Did you attend a parent-child session and learn a meditation you can practice with your son?  Now’s your chance.

Will this work?  Not every time, and when it does it will be temporary— but that doesn’t matter.   What matters is that you gave your child an opportunity to enter into a space of peace and calm on the outside, so they have the chance to practice a similar peace on the inside.  Your job as parent isn’t to get rid of your child’s tics, it’s to help them open doors they otherwise wouldn’t have access to; doors that bring them closer to developing the skills they need to more powerfully manage their tics and comorbid symptoms.