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How to talk to our young kids


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So Baker is 5 and we are new.... lots of changes at our house this week. Different foods and no screen time. I tried to give him a simple explaination "We are trying some new things to help your eyes feel better" ( his main tic is pulling on the eyes up or down). It broke my heart to hear him be so frustrated and actually yell at me "well it's not working, my eyes still bother" I told him he was perfect just how he is and not to worry about his eyes. And thanked him for being a tropper with all this new food stuff.

 

So do we talk about it or ignore it? Most of the day I completly ignore it, even though I journal about every two hours. He has of course heard me calling the doctors office making appointments and in the begining I didn't know these were tics so I thought something was wrong with his eyes. I do notice if we talk about it he will tic more.....

 

I really don't know if he realizes he is pulling at his eyes or not. But he does have to stop playing to do it...so who knows. No one other than our family even knows what is happening with him. Right now his tics are not noticable. Actually they are very noticable but don't appear "strange".... maybe he just has an itchy eye, scratchy head or tickle in his nose. Teachers are aware only b/c of the food restrictions.

 

How do you talk to your kids about it??

Lorie

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We have been dealing with this for a couple of years now. My son is almost 8. At first, we told him that the supplements, etc. were to make him strong and healthy (which is, of course, true). And that the food restrictions were because of allergies (which is also true). When we cut out all screens, we told him that our family wasn't doing that anymore (and the adults didn't either, except for internet. No TV/movies/games etc for any of us).

 

We just a couple of months ago told him about the tics. We used the term "motor tics" so that he (and others) wouldn't get confused with the insects. He was pretty nonchalant about it.

 

I think he is just now beginning to feel the premontory urge before the tic. (There is a behavioral study at UCLA that wants to wait until kids are 9 before accepting them because they say that at age 8 or 9 is when they can usually start to feel this urge). When I told my son that we were trying things to stop the tics, he said that he "kind of liked them", but on questioning it turns out that he didn't want us to take away the behavior that stopped the urge. I explained that we were going to try to stop the urge itself and then he was okay with it.

 

Right now, he has two main tics. One is rubbing his eyes followed by slapping his face and the other is slapping his book closed in the middle of reading it. Since he loves to read more than anything and will read most of the day when he can, I can see how this would be very very frustrating for him. But he seems to be taking it in stride.

 

I wish you well.

 

-- Liane

 

So Baker is 5 and we are new.... lots of changes at our house this week. Different foods and no screen time. I tried to give him a simple explaination "We are trying some new things to help your eyes feel better" ( his main tic is pulling on the eyes up or down). It broke my heart to hear him be so frustrated and actually yell at me "well it's not working, my eyes still bother" I told him he was perfect just how he is and not to worry about his eyes. And thanked him for being a tropper with all this new food stuff.

 

So do we talk about it or ignore it? Most of the day I completly ignore it, even though I journal about every two hours. He has of course heard me calling the doctors office making appointments and in the begining I didn't know these were tics so I thought something was wrong with his eyes. I do notice if we talk about it he will tic more.....

 

I really don't know if he realizes he is pulling at his eyes or not. But he does have to stop playing to do it...so who knows. No one other than our family even knows what is happening with him. Right now his tics are not noticable. Actually they are very noticable but don't appear "strange".... maybe he just has an itchy eye, scratchy head or tickle in his nose. Teachers are aware only b/c of the food restrictions.

 

How do you talk to your kids about it??

Lorie

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