HBO special on Tourette’s Syndrome

If you want to help your children understand the feelings of those that are “different” than others. HBO is airing “I HAVE TOURETTE’S, BUT TOURETTE’S DOESN’T HAVE ME”. This 30 minute documentary lets your children step into the lives of children suffering with the syndrome. Because it is spoken directly from the mouths of kids their own age (8-13), they hear the message. My son was impacted deeply by their statements of feeling different. He could identify with some of their OCD symptoms. While he doesn’t have OCD, he can easily be distracted by things around him. He could identify with the boy who spoke of getting hyper focused on an item in his line of sight and having to remove it in order to focus on the item at hand. The kids spoke eloquently about trying to prevent their tics and how it made their body feel. They discussed the pro's and con's of medication. And one child showed his ability to play classical piano flawlessly without one sign of the syndrome, as he called it being in the zone. I would recommend this movie not just for its message about Tourette’s specifically, but about feeling different in general. This would be a great jump off for a family conversation about bullying or being bullied and about disabilities and gifts.