TPP 400: Michele Turk’s Journey of Parenting a Child with Tourette’s Syndrome
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
37 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 1 day ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What misconceptions about Tourette syndrome do most people believe?
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With Tourette, someone said once, it's not life-threatening, it's life-tormenting. I mean, he's 11 years old, and all of a sudden he starts cursing uncontrollably. And he missed school for three months because he didn't want to be around other kids. And I supported that. I didn't want him to either. And he used to call himself a freak and say things like, I'll never have a girlfriend. I'll never get married. And part of it is there's a huge stigma surrounding Tourette's syndrome. So on top of having this diagnosis that's perplexing and hard to deal with, there's this stigma. And even kids that age know about it because they know about it from the way Hollywood has portrayed it.
I'm Debbie Reber and welcome to Tilt Parenting, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, informing, and supporting parents raising differently wired kids. There is a lot of misinformation and stigma around neurodivergence that can create extra barriers and challenges for our families. This is especially true for Tourette's syndrome, which is often referred to as the most misunderstood, well-known condition. It's often the punchline of jokes on late night TV and sitcoms. And it's in large part because of these misconceptions and difficulty accessing resources that my guest today, Michelle Turk, found herself at a loss when her 11-year-old son, Michael, was diagnosed with Tourette.
In her new memoir, What Makes Him Tick?, a memoir of parenting a child with Tourette syndrome, She writes vulnerably about the challenges they face as a family and getting the right support, navigating school, social, emotional, and academic challenges, and how she evolved from thinking she had to fix Michael to understanding her job was to accept him and to help him do the same. She really wanted the world to know he was so much more than the boy who shouted obscenities hundreds of times a day. Because Michelle's worked as a journalist for three decades, covering parenting, health, and education for outlets like Parents, Parenting, Elle, USA Weekend, The Washington Post, Brain Child, and Next Avenue, she was compelled to write about her journey as she was in it.
And that close-up, honest perspective, blended with ample reporting on Tourette, What Makes Him Tick, a highly compelling and informative read. So in this episode, Michelle talks with us about the misconceptions about Tourette that she came across in her work as a journalist and her private life as a parent. We also talked about what some of the early symptoms were and how they managed them, how differently she and her husband approached the diagnosis and what it took for them to get on the same page, how her son's diagnosis impacted her neurotypical daughter, and much more. I learned a lot through Michelle's book and this conversation. I hope you get a lot out of it too. Hey, Michelle, welcome to the podcast.
Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to getting into your book, which I read with fascination and really kind of struck me in so many ways. What you went through in your own journey of discovering who your child was and how to support him. And you were very vulnerable about your own experience. journey of self-discovery. So I want to get into all of that today. But could you tell us a little bit more about yourself behind the bio? So how you came to decide, I need to write this book? Where did this really stem from?
So I have been a journalist for, I guess, 30 years now, mostly writing about parenting and health in some business. But I was writing about parenting before I even became a parent. And then I scaled back a lot and was very part-time when my children were little.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What misconceptions about Tourette syndrome do most people believe?
0:00–6:20
2
How did Michele first notice the early signs of Tourette in her son?
6:20–11:46
3
What challenges did the family face when navigating the school system?
11:46–16:28
4
How did Michele and her husband get on the same page about treatment?
16:28–21:43
5
What impact did Michael’s diagnosis have on his neurotypical sister?
21:43–26:16
6
How did the family cope with the emotional and social stigma of Tourette?
26:16–31:33
7
What shift in mindset helped Michele move from ‘fixing’ to ‘accepting’ her child?
31:33–36:24
8
Why is finding a passion or hobby crucial for children with Tourette?
36:24–37:57
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
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TPP 522: A Whole Child Approach to ADHD with Phil Boucher, M.D.
TPP 091a: A Conversation With Steve Silberman About His Book “Neurotribes”
TPP 521: A Conversation with Dr. Peter Gray About Restoring Childhood
TPP 253a: Advocate and Author Jonathan Mooney on Why Normal Sucks
TPP 520: Dr. Özgür Bolat on Why Rewards Backfire and the Real Science of Motivating Kids