Tonight’s TV Tourettes

I’ve just finished watching the documentary I mentioned last week – Kids With Tourettes: In Their Own Words. I enjoyed it a great deal and at times found it very moving. I felt it gave a good insight into the challenges of growing up with tics.

I was particularly struck by how articulate the children were in explaining the sensations and pain of their tics. This is something people without the condition often overlook.

9-year-old Callum’s description of his tics as being like a pack of cards from which he keeps pulling out new ones was especially good. The unpredictability of Tourettes and the possibility that new tics can arrive at any time was understandably a very present concern for all the families featured.

The programme was thought provoking and generated a lot of interesting discussion on Twitter. I’m hoping to interview Tara Murphy, the therapist from Great Ormond Street Hospital who featured on the programme very soon.

Watch this space.

2 responses to Tonight’s TV Tourettes

  1. Kalimakef says:

    I just watched this on ITV player. Having heard about it an looked forward to it I was actually disappointed. I was hoping to hear more from the experts about their approach but sadly there was very little from them. Once again the producers succumbed to the usual TS documentary approach of focusing on the tics and the difficulties they pose. Also, noticeably lacking was any real discussion about schools. In our experience and from other parents of TS children, school causes more problems for them than anything else. My son, extremely bright, is effectively excluded because the school staff could not accept his TS. Now he receives home tutoring and gets through entire hour long sessions without tics. Please please let the next TS documentary explore the reality behind a TS child’s experience of school and what those professionals who have had successes with TS clients have to say about their approach. Perhaps you could explore some of this in your interview with Tara Murphy?

  2. Thanks for your comments. I’ve already interviewed Tara Murphy and it should be going up on the site very soon.

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