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@madimi I have been reading your comments over the last couple of days and I can totally relate to your feelings. I am sharing my story and hoping it will give you some comfort. During 2020 pandemic, my daughter was around 8 years, she had a really tough teacher. She struggled a lot with online classes and having a strict teacher wasn't helping. One day my daughter had a bad day since her teacher confronted her in front of the entire class for not submitting homework. Few days later, I noticed that she started making a 'hhmm' noise every few seconds. I felt something was wrong and immediately emailed the pediatrician who said they are tics and will go away. I started the 'hhmmm' turned into new tics every few weeks, we saw hand pulling backwards, cough, throat clearing, heavy breath out, leg lifting, waist stretch to the sides or back, eye blinking, head nodding, neck tightening, standing on toes, eyebrow frowning, shoulder shrugging, touch chin to neck, shifting upper body to one side etc. I took her to two different neurologists and both of them confirmed that they are tics and they will go away. Since she was having tough time with her teacher, her anxiety levels were really high and we went to pediatric psychologist to received progressive muscle relaxation techniques. With advise from @mert, I started tracking tics, frequency and intensity on a spreadsheet. It gave me a lot of relief as I saw a pattern, approximately every 6 weeks i saw tics going away replaced by new ones. The trend continued for almost a year. After almost 9 moths of tics, my daughter started getting CBIT therapy for tics. It helped her a lot to be able to suppress some problematic tics in social situations. December, 2021, by the time we reached one year mark, tics were almost gone, one or two remaining with very less frequency and intensity. I was so happy and started sleeping peacefully after many sleepless months. For 2022 new year celebrations, we decided that the whole family have been thru a lot and need a vacation. We went to Mexico for a 7 days trip and few days into the trip, I noticed that she started with some neck and mouth tics. I was heartbroken and was full of guilt for going on a trip. Currently, 3 moths after vacation she still have tics that started during vacation and are slowly lessening frequency. I am sharing my story to tell you that it is not easy and needs lots of patience. I struggled a lot and went into depression and lost interest in life. I realized that my daughter needed me the most and need to stay strong. ITs not easy, I used to pretend normal in front of her and used to cry my heart out at nights. Here is a list of things that helped me and my daughter: Things that helped Me: Read studies on tics and believe that some of these children will outgrow them Take help, talk to your doctor and get therapy to manage your anxiety Keep life simple, don't overwork and burn out yourself. We ate PBJ sandwiches many times since I had no energy to make something good and its ok. Take a nice walk in the sun, hike, bike etc whenever weather permits. I kept the social gatherings to as minimal as possible as meeting people worsened my anxiety as they gave my daughter looks. Have someone who will listen to you, for me it was @mert . He listened to my concerns and patiently replied whenever i wrote to him. It helped me tremendously. Think of your child, how hard it must be for them to deal with tics, try to make them feel as special as you can, hugs, kisses, play time with them, appreciation, new toys etc. Things that helped my daughter: Limit screen time to as low as possible including laptop, TV, phone and tablet Make up silly games to play with them to deviate and take away stress, I used to play badminton with a balloon, skipping, charades etc. Lower gluten, sugar, processed and deep fried foods and artificial colors to as little as possible. It is believed that inflammation in the body and gut health is directly connected to brain functioning. Started music classes to keep her occupied Hope my post was helpful. Trust me its not easy. No matter what, it is just a medical condition and there are many worse conditions that this, so we should be glad. Give your kid all the love and care you can, I am sure he will outgrow of the tics and this may not even be a problem few years from now.

Get any help you can. I understand you fully and we've been in the exact situation multiple times. I can not talk for your child but I know my daughter can catch me easily if I watch her tics and this makes her nervous and also negatively effects the tic frequency. I still get caught time to time, but I thought myself to make her comfortable during the peaks as it's the not the easiest but shortest way out for both of us. I think stress certainly has an effect. Under negative stress I see the tics rise quickly. I try to apply positive stress as much as possible, like a physical competition , memory games, any thing that would direct her concentration to somewhere else. Believe it or not, every 30 sec is not really a high frequency. I had so much worse on some tics. Just today, she started blinking both eyes same time (not like blinking but like closing and opening) , we had this tic couple of times before. Sometimes today it got really frequent. A few minutes after I told her, it might be better not to use iPad as her eyes look tired, she came and told me, I don't want to do it (close eyes) but I also want to ... trying to explain herself. I said, it's quite ok and to do whichever she feels better, closing or not closing and added it will go away in a few days maximum anyway (that's some good will) Back to my first sentence, get any help you can, if you are not well, you can not help.