Stink gave his class the T.S. talk on Tuesday. His teacher – God bless her – canceled it on Friday since the kid who really needed to hear Stink wasn’t in school. I prayed his absence was a sign that the kid had left the school and I could shield my baby from mean children forever. I was glad this difficult student was once again attending class as it would be an opportunity for Stink to practice some valuable life skills in a safe setting.
My mother had a different reaction to the situation: “Take Stink out of that school and put him in a setting that is more open to differences!” Translation: Spare him this pain.
Two years ago I would have agreed with my mom – at least on a knee jerk emotional level. It breaks my heart to see my kid being teased for something he can’t help. But now that five years have passed since his original diagnosis, I couldn’t feel more certain that keeping Stink right where he is – in a public school with all the good, the bad, the ugly and the fabulous – is the best gift I can give him.
Life is fraught with trials and tribulations. If he didn’t have T.S., he’d be teased for something else. No, running away from the problem would only set him up for failure in the future when he wouldn’t possess the inner tools necessary to deal with adversity.
Call me getting old and crotchety, but our culture, despite technology, is getting dumber and dumber. We coddle more and more. Just take a look at bowling alleys. Oooooh, we can’t have the kids bowl and have their balls go into the guttter! How sad that is! They’d fee like a failure! I know! Let’s place long rubber tubing down the lanes so the balls bounce away from the gutter and knocks down pins! Yeah! Everyone gets to feel like a winner! It’s artificial and they didn’t earn it, but who cares! It’s so much easier than watching them cry. Those darn growing pains – let’s eradicate them altogether, send out holiday cards where we photo shop out their zits when they’re teenagers, and buy them clothes they can’t afford so that mean little bully in 8th grade can’t make fun of them!
T.S. is not easy, but it’s a perfect opportunity to live life on life’s terms. Those terms, correct me if I’m wrong, include:
1. Suffering. We can’t escape pain.
2.Strength: We all need to work on our gifts, not our weaknesses. (Not that ticking is a defect, but it’s outside the norm.)
3. Humor: We need to laugh at the absurdity of ridiculous situations. This can even include chuckling at the concept of allowing a nasty 9 year old boy to define the truths about who our kids are. That’s hilarious!
And so, the night before the speech, I sat him down and said, “Stink, are you ready to do this?”
Stink: “Yes, but I’m sooooo sick of talking about my tics!”
Me: (Note to self: Back off, Mama. I’m trying! I really am!) “I don’t blame you, Stink, but you have to face this head on.”
Stink: “It’s annoying! And I’m tired of Pipsqueak giving me advice on it!”
Just five minutes earlier Pip was aghast at Stink’s story about lunch. That same kid was asking about a silly band on his wrist. “You’re so immature!” he told Stink, huffing off to his Beevis and Butthead playmates who, likely, didn’t have silly bands but were pretty darn good at talking about first person shooter games, their favorite Chuckie movies and how many Coca Colas they could drink and burp out in one day. (I mean, it’s shocking these kids have no inner soul life, but I digress.)
Me: “I get that you’re over your sister telling you to find the teachers on the playground. It’s just she loves you and is worried about you.”
I take his hand in mine and look him straight in the eye.
Me: “But to your point, I don’t want to talk about your tics anymore either. However, you have them – a lot of them these days – and kids are noticing. It isn’t fun, but you need to educate people. After that, if someone still chooses to act like a turd, they can’t claim ignorance.”
Stink: “What’s ignorance?”
Me: “It means ‘not knowing something.’
Stink: “Papa is definitely not ignorant because he knows everything!”
Now how can you not laugh at that last statement? And duh… my husband knows everything. I guess we’ll have a cure for T.S. soon then! Hooray!
The speech went really well the next day. More on it tomorrow.
* This site is syndicated at The New Jersey Center for Tourette Syndrome’s blog. Come on over and meet other writers who share similar joys and struggles. Do you write and want to contribute posts to the NJ Center or guest blog here? Email me at LifeHappins@Gmail.com
JPG above taken from The New Jersey Center for Tourette Syndrome’s blog
Happily Ticked Off 
But how do you stop talking about it (or as I like to call it, trying to fix it)? I can’t either. I even video taped mine on the rides grimacing. And then when I played back our fun filled day, he did see how noticeable it was, and i told him to substitute something less noticeable for that tic. How easy is that! I don’t know if he can do it though. Do I simply, in all my attempts to “fix” him so he can be “happy”, make him more self-conscious?
As far as keeping stink where he is, I think you’re right- that will give him strength. It’s just so hard to not do everything you can to protect them, even when protecting them is ultimately hurting them.
gotta love that boy of yours! Sounds like a hoot! Can’t wait to hear about the speech…
@ Joy – I have done the asking Stink to substitute the sounds also. I will write a post on that! LOL. I get it. It’s hard. But ulltimately, it seems we must never stop trying to alleviate the tics, but at the same time, not put them on edge. I think we need to let them tell us when they are ready to quiet the tics, and then we can think about meds or CBT or something.
@ Tara – Thank you. I will definitely write more later.