Attending To Children With TouretteS Disorder: A Parenting Guide Essay

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Attending to Children with Tourette’s Disorder: A Parenting Guide


Jasmine Khattar

Clinical Psychologist & Assistant Director

Institute for Exceptional Children

Mumbai

jasmine.khattar@gmail.com


Trinjhna Khattar

Research Student

Dept. of Applied Psychology

University of Mumbai

trinjhna@gmail.com


Abstract


Tourette’s Disorder and its associated difficulties are unbearable and unmanageable when parenting a special child suffering from it. Parenting is not taught in any class and managing a child with Tourette’s Disorder seems unendurable. This article aims to guide parents with a number of suggestions of how to parent such a child. The behaviours that need to be encouraged, those that need to be side-lines, attitudes that need to be adopted and those that need to be rejected when taking care of a child with Tourette’s Disorder are highlighted herein. All along better rehabilitation and adjustment being the primary focus of the caregiver.  


None of us are trained before becoming a parent. Parenting a special child becomes an impossible task for many. It brings along a surging need to deal with enormous behaviour and learning difficulties, the psychosocial stressors that are all outcomes of the child’s particular difficulty. Very often parents are exposed to distorted version of mental health anomalies through irresponsible television programmes and movies. This builds up high expectations and irrational hopes of recovery. Parenting, thus, becomes a stressful experience that continues to over pressurise the poor child. Parenting a child with Tourette’s Disorder is by no means an easy task since it often evokes negativity in the caregiver. Further, lack of scientific information and coping skills to deal with everyday turbulences goes against effective management of the disorder.  


Tourette’s Disorder is a neuropsychiatic disease that has been widely reported in diverse racial and...