When To Worry About Your Kid's Facial And Body Tics

The first step is educating the parents about what makes tics worse—for example, stress and anxiety—and better, as well as teaching them that tics can come and go, sometimes for no clear reason, and that they do improve over time, says Doja.

One strategy that Pearce uses at this stage is to show parents how to take the “spotlight off tics”, as she describes it. Parents may feel compelled to frequently mention their kid’s tics but it is advisable to refrain from commenting too much on them. This is because, according to Pearce, tics are "suggestible”—meaning just thinking about tics or hearing about tics, can make a child’s tics worse. “The parents who are saying, ‘Why are you doing that? Can you stop that? Or, don’t do that. That’s noisy. Or that’s annoying. Or that’s frustrating for me,’ will actually make the kid tic more,” she explains.