One of the biggest issues with TS is school. I have been blessed to have some amazing educators and administrators who work with me to solve our issues. It wasn't always this easy. And it still isn't this easy. It's a daily battle and no matter how prepared educators think they are for this, you're never prepared enough.
Kindergarten sailed along pretty easily for Liam. In first grade we were surprised to have his teacher tell us that he was not the well behaved, easy going, sweet, smart child that we knew at home. At parent teacher conferences there were complaints about Liam not focusing and speaking out. Second grade was better- we had talked to his pediatrician and identified that he had a tic disorder. I was still in the rookie mode of trying to communicate the various tics to his teacher so that she would know what was a tic and what wasn't. Third grade was a nightmare. I was not well enough armed with information to support Liam- and I wasn't ready to get a diagnosis. Partly because my pediatrician's recommendation to me was that a lot of kids have tics at some point and they usually go away. Partly due to the stigma attached to "Tourette's". His teacher was, by all accounts, the teacher that everyone wanted. Sadly, she was not the best match for my guy. She wanted order and neatness and quiet. She would send home hours of recopying for Liam to do because nothing was neat enough. He was staying in at recess everyday for getting out of his seat and for not doing his work neatly enough. This, of course, only made the tics and the outbursts worse because he had no way to get it out of his system. Then, when I was totally demoralized and broken and thought I'd failed as a parent, we got a ray of sunshine in Liam's 4th grade teacher. Empathetic, kind, thoughtful, and caring he made me feel not like a failure as a parent, but helped to guide me to get Liam diagnosed. With the diagnosis we were able to get into place an official document of all of the strategies that were working for Liam in the classroom in a 504 plan. Accademically, not a stellar year, but it made a world of difference in my mindset as a parent.
Now we're in 5th grade, with a no nonsense teacher who feels comfortable with approaching me and who I feel comfortable talking to about what may help my son to learn more effectively. I received an email from her today asking me how she can identify what's a vocal tic and what's him speaking out in class. It made me feel so lucky to have an educator who is working with me to try to make her class run more smoothly and not automatically treating my child like a behavior problem. With a big sigh of relief that she asked, I directed her to an article on the tsa-usa website for educators about dealing with vocal tics in the classroom.
On my best days with Liam he is sweet and smart and philosphical and loving and empathetic and artistic. On my worst days with Liam he is flighty and not a great student and moody and scattered. In other words, he's just like his mom. School was difficult for me being flighty and scattered and artistic, and that's who he is- school would be difficult with or without the TS. My job as a mom is to try to make it the best learning environment that I can for him and give his teachers the best help that I can by educating myself and them.
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