I'm sorry

There's an interesting divide among the TS community about apologizing. Some people will not apologize for their own or their kids ticcing. Some will. My feeling on it is a middle ground. I feel as though Liam having a tic in public around a lot of people is unfortunate for him, because it's never comfortable for him to have attention drawn to himself like that, but that it's almost always an opportunity to educate.
I've tried to teach Liam that when it happens he should simply give an "elevator speech" about TS. An elevator speech is a concise planned out speech that you could give in the time it takes to ride an elevator. I've practiced the main points that he wants to get across with him. He likes to let people know that it's not contagious and he can't help it. I like it if he gets a few more details in there because I feel like education is such a huge part of conquering this for the entire community. The more people can identify it, not be scared of it, and know someone with it, the more overall tolerance and understanding there will be.
One of the other great things about doing this as opposed to apologizing or just pretending it didn't happen and letting people wonder what's going on is that Liam is gaining a tremendous skill. He's learning to talk to people with confidence on a subject that he has greater knowledge of than most adults. It's a great way to empower him.
Before Liam was on his medication, he was having horrible tics walking through the grocery store one day. His younger brother was being BRUTAL to him. Whining and yelling at him to stop making that noise. Ever since, grocery stores have been a huge trigger for Liam. Whenever we walk in I can tell he's getting tense and about to start ticcing and he worries about what people will say. As soon as I tell him "go aheadn and tic, and if we have to explain it to people we will" he calms down and the urge to tic subsides.