What Makes Him Tic?: A Memoir of Parenting a Child with Tourette Syndrome

When the author's 11-year-old son Michael was diagnosed with Tourette syndrome, she began a quest to make sure he didn't remain, in his words, "a freak" who shouted obscenities hundreds of times a day. In What Makes Him Tic?: Parenting a Child with Tourette Syndrome, Michele Turk blends firsthand experience raising a child with Tourette with useful information on how her son was able to control his symptoms, accept his condition, and lead a normal life. The book also provides ample research and reporting on Tourette to educate readers about what's been referred to as "the most misunderstood well-known condition." What Makes Him Tic? is written for any parent of a neurodivergent child who refuses to accept the conventional wisdom that these kids will never succeed and that kids with conditions like Tourette are destined to become carnival sideshows.

What Makes Him Tic? is a bare-all account of the six years Turk spent battling a medical problem that was, by all accounts, incurable, and making sure Michael survived his school years with his self-esteem intact. The reported memoir will serve as both a roadmap and an inspiration for thousands of parents of children with Tourette and other tic disorders who are despondent and desperate as she was. What Makes Him Tic? describes the author's leave-no-stone-unturned strategy to figure out what Michael needed to succeed academically, socially, and emotionally and her journey to launch him into a world where Tourette is the butt of jokes on late-night TV and shows like The Simpsons.

The author used her tenacity as a mother and resourcefulness as a journalist to get Michael the right medical care, a good education, help him navigate the social landmines of middle school, and harness his talents as a musician (he magically stopped ticcing when he played guitar, drums, or sang). This book takes readers to Carnegie Hall, where Turk was certain she was the only parent ever to sit in the audience and wonder whether her child would drop the f-bomb while singing onstage. It takes readers inside medical exam rooms, classrooms, and barrooms where Michael sang, played drums and guitar, and the bathroom, where she hid so her kids wouldn't see her cry. And it takes readers inside a marriage in turmoil; Michael's struggle took a toll on the author's marriage as her husband, a doctor, was unable to help his son, leaving her, a woman who had doubted her abilities as a mother, to find reserves of strength she didn't know she had.