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If you are a parent watching your child tic, this is probably the first question that lands and the one that keeps coming back at 2am. Will this pass. Will they grow out of it. Is this a phase, or is this becoming who they are in the world's eyes.

I get asked versions of this every week. A cough that will not quit. Blinking that used to be occasional and now fills whole evenings. A vocal sound that started small and has followed them into school, friends, confidence. Sometimes the child is five. Sometimes they are eleven and the tics have already been around for years. The detail changes. The hope underneath does not: please tell me this will go away.

Here is the honest answer, without the sugar or the scare.

For a lot of children, tics do ease. They wax and wane. Some tics do dissolve away in time. That is real, and it is why so many doctors say wait and watch when the tics are mild and the child is not distressed.

And also: some children's tics do not politely leave on schedule. Som...