Haejinn's post on Telling Children About TS:
Quote:
I've used a particular story to explain TS to my nephew and the kids of some friends of mine and it seems to work well...
I talk to them first about the brain, making sure they know what it is and how it's the boss of the whole body. Then I tell them that because the brain has so much to do, it has messengers that help them. For example, if the brain decides it's time for the toes to wiggle, it tells a messenger "Hey, go tell the toes to wiggle" (I usually give a couple
more examples here too.)
ANYWAY, sometimes people are born with TOO MANY messengers. (I'm sort of thinking of brain chemicals here... like dopamine...) Anyway, after all the messengers have been assigned their job, there's a bunch of these chemicals left over. They want to help too, but the brain says 'No, I've already got enough helpers. Go sit yourselves in the corner over there and occupy yourselves and stay out of our way." Well, of course, the extra-messengers soon get bored and angry and decide they're going to help whether the brain likes it or not. So THEY start telling different parts of the body to do stuff. Now, these parts don't know there are extra messengers. They just know that when they're told to do something, they do it EVEN IF THE OWNER OF THE BODY DOESN'T WANT THAT PART TO DO IT. (At this point, I use that eye-blinking example. I tell the kids to try to not blink as long as possible.) Pretty soon the brain will decide it's time to blink and send down a messenger. The poor eye will be confused. "Here's (kid's name) telling me not to blink, but here's one of the brain's messengers telling me TO BLINK." (Pretty soon, of course, the kid will have to blink.) "See," I say. "The messengers ALWAYS win."
Then I go on to explain some of the other 'silly things' those bored extra messengers make me do. By the time I'm done, the kids think it's actually pretty cool.
