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How to Respond to a Child with Tics

Tics are repetitive movements that just happen, and are not within a child’s control. A child with tics might be able to delay them for a short while, just in the way that the rest of us can hold our breath and delay our breathing. Eventually our need to breathe will become overwhelming and automatic. This is similar to how tics overwhelm a child and cannot be suppressed for very long. So it is totally useless to expect a child to “stop” her tics. Tics accompany all kinds of syndromes and disorders, such as ADHD and OCD. If a child … Continue reading →

Syndrome Soup: When Your Kid Has a Mixed Diagnosis

Although some special needs children have a very specific diagnosis of ADHD, autism, or Tourette syndrome, etc., many children have symptoms from a variety of disorders. For example, a child might have Tourette-like tics, with ADHD-like inattention, OCD-like anxiety, and bipolar-like mood swings. Add a dash of learning disabilities, and you’ve got syndrome soup. Many neurological disorders have cross-over symptoms, and many are commonly seen together, such as ADHD and Tourette syndrome. Sometimes these mixed-diagnosis kids have a long list of disorders which seem to utilize every letter of the alphabet, or they might be in limbo with no specific … Continue reading →

Ten Ways to Help Your Child with Tourette Syndrome Succeed in School

Children with Tourette syndrome (TS) often face a hostile, unkind world in the public school system. Teachers can be impatient with the tics and peers can be cruel and insulting. What happens in the classroom, and how the tics are handled, can seriously impact the life of this special child. Here are ten classroom accommodations which can help your child with Tourette Syndrome (or other tic disorders) succeed in school: 1. Select a good teacher. The teacher should be carefully chosen. He or she should be patient, understanding, and knowledgeable about TS. The teacher should have a private meeting with … Continue reading →

Glossary of Special Needs Adoption-Related Terms “T-Z”

Special Needs and Adoption-Related Terms: Adoption terms and special needs words may vary from agency to agency.The terms used in this Special Needs Adoption-Related Glossary may be slightly different from one State to another. A | B | C | D | E-F | G-H-I | J-K-L | M | N-O | P | Q-R | S | T-Z T Termination of Parental Rights (TPR): The legal process which involuntarily severs a parent’s rights to a child. Related TPR Blogs: The Case File Therapeutic foster home: A foster home in which the foster parents have received special training to care … Continue reading →

The EYES Have It: How Eye Contact Can Transform Your Child

in your eyes– the light the heat– in your eyes– I am complete– in your eyes– I see the doorway to a thousand churches– in your eyes– the resolution of all the fruitless searches– in your eyes — Peter Gabriel The Power of Eye Contact There is a dramatic, powerful human connection that takes place when two people gaze into each other’s eyes. Its effect has marveled people throughout time. Eye-to-eye gaze between two individuals can send the subconscious message, “I see you. I want to understand you; I want you to understand me. I care about you.” In the … Continue reading →

“You’re not my BOSS!” Oppositional Defiant Disorder

Our family was on vacation, and my nine-year-old stepdaughter was up to her usual antics. It started with teasing her brother. As he screamed, I called her out of the room and made her sit at the kitchen table next to me. She began to get very mouthy and rude. I then had her sit on a chair, away from the activity of the family, for twenty minutes. That’s when she began a tirade of dramatic remarks, namely that I hated her, the whole family hated her, and that she was “always punished for no reason.” She screamed, stomped her … Continue reading →

Have You Ever Noticed…

Call it the anti-blog. Ordinarily, you expect Families.com blogs to provide answers, advice, a new perspective or new information on topics ranging from travel to Tourette’s Syndrome. This blog does the opposite. It includes more questions than answers. In fact, it is merely a collection of random observations I have on various household products and cleaning methods (perhaps, you’ll find that you share some of them). Each fits under the heading of: “Have you ever noticed…” Have you ever noticed… that manufacturers of spray cleaners never make the plastic tube affixed to the nozzle long enough to reach the last … Continue reading →

Just How Open Should We Be with Our Special Needs Kids?

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Recently I took my two stepdaughters to the doctor for a dosage check on their ADHD medication. (They each take 30 mg. of adderall daily.) Before the physician entered the room, the nurse began entering information into the computer. Height, weight, blood pressure, etc. The girls, ages twelve and nine, gleefully teased each other and fought over the cushioned examination seat. When the pediatrician finally came into the room, he had a lot of questions. What were the behaviors I saw when the girls were off their medication? What behaviors did I see while they were on it? Was it … Continue reading →

Flapping, Spinning, Waving, Whirling: The Child With Irregular Motor Behavior

Sometimes children with special needs will display peculiar behaviors with their body parts. They might flap their hands, wave their arms, spin in circles, or bounce. They might fiddle with a string constantly, or jump up and down repetitively. Interestingly enough, this is not necessarily caused by autism, brain damage, or mental retardation. These are motor processing problems where the child has only limited control of what his body is doing. They might be symptoms of a larger disorder, like autism, but they can also appear in children who are neuro-typical. What causes these irregular body movements? In The Child … Continue reading →