Tourette Syndrome and helping your child make friends

School is a great place for kids to meet children their own age and make friends. You can help by talking to your child about their classmates and approaching their parents to organise a play date. Local activities, clubs and groups are also good places to make friends. You can start early, with toddler groups or play school, and look further afield as your child gets older.

If your child has a particular interest, such as sport, music, or wildlife, see if you can find a children’s club in your local area. Alternatively, look at adventure activities through Scouts or Guides. If your child is keen to meet other young people with TS, Tourettes Action host regular events to bring people with tics and their families together.

After an activity with their friends, talk to your child about how it went for them. Ask them about parts they enjoyed and what they didn’t like. If your child had fun, then think about building the activity it into their regular routine. You could even chat to other parents or group leaders to see what they thought. By finding out about how the play date went, you can help your child to improve their social skills and address any challenges.

If they found that sharing their toys was difficult, for example, it can be helpful to explain the importance and benefits of taking turns. If there are toys that they are worried about being broken, you could place these out of the way.

It is important for children to have lots of time to practice social skills and build confidence. However, children will sometimes try to hold in their tics around other people and this can be tiring. If your child is holding in their tics, be mindful not to overwhelm them with too many activities. Also, try to make sure that play dates do not always happen in the same place to help your child develop skills to use in a range of settings.

For all children it is helpful to demonstrate how best to behave with friends. This could include teaching them about taking turns, sharing toys, and how to generally behave when others are around. Some children may be nervous about going somewhere unfamiliar, so you could get them ready for this by visiting a friend’s house together a few times or showing them where the new activity will take place.

You may be worried that your child won’t fit in or get on with other children – this is a normal concern for any parent and can be especially concerning if your child has TS. It can be helpful to talk to other children’s parents or the group leader before introducing your child to the group. You could tell them the basics about TS and how you will be preparing your child to join the group.

Children will always have disagreements – usually over something temporary. It is important for them to learn how to deal with disagreements, especially as they transition into young adulthood. The key to this is to teach them to deal with social difficulties and support them without taking over or resolving the situation for them.

If your child is being teased, this may be because they have tics or for many other reasons. It is important to teach them how to defuse a bullying situation. They could try to talk to the other child about tics – (see our page ‘explaining your TS to other people’ for ideas). Teaching your child a response to use when they are being singled out can be very helpful. You can practice this line together, so they feel more confident on their own.

Some children say that they want to stop doing an activity or seeing a particular friend rather than explain that they have fallen out. Before you take them out of the activity, try to find out why they want to stop. It may be a good idea to have a word with the activity leader or parent to help solve the problem, but be mindful that children (especially teenagers) can be very self-conscious about being seen to be helped.

It can be hard to help your child to make friends if you find this difficult yourself. If you feel too shy to speak to the parents of your child’s friends, discuss this with a friend or family member who may be able to help you. It can be difficult to fit in your own activities with everyday life, but it is a good idea to arrange time with your friends so that your child sees this as a part of life.