Here’s What Most Parents and Doctors Don’t Know

Your child started blinking hard. Or clearing their throat over and over. Or twitching their shoulders. Or shouting words that aren’t theirs. Maybe it started gradually. Maybe it came on out of nowhere.

You took them to the pediatrician. Then to a neurologist. Maybe a psychiatrist. Maybe a therapist. You got a diagnosis — Tourette syndrome, transient tic disorder, PANDAS, OCD. You started medication. You started behavioral therapy. Some of it helped. Some of it didn’t. Some of it helped for a while and then the tics changed and you were back at square one.

And in the back of your head — probably late at night, after another hard day — you’ve started wondering whether what’s happening to your kid is fully what the medical system says it is.

You’re not wrong to wonder. And you’re not betraying your child’s medical team by asking the question.

After fifteen years of working with kids and families on the energetic layer, I can tell you that some tics, OCD compulsions, and repetitive behaviors respond to something the standard treatment path doesn’t address. Not all of them. But enough of them that I think it’s worth talking about.

Does Any of This Sound Like Your Child?

You’re probably here because some version of this is happening:

The tics came on suddenly, with no clear medical trigger and no real warning.

New tic patterns keep appearing. You’ll get a handle on one, and another one shows up.

The tics get worse in certain rooms, certain houses, or around certain people.

The tics get worse at night, before sleep, or in the hour after waking up.

The tics escalated after a specific event — a move, a loss, an illness, a trauma, exposure to a heavy environment.

Standard treatment has helped, but only partially. You’ve plateaued. The neurologist’s solution is more medication or different medication, and your gut is telling you that’s not the full answer.

Your child is sensitive. Emotional. Intuitive. Picks up on things. Says they feel what other people are feeling. Has always seemed wired a little differently from other kids.

There’s family history — anxiety, OCD, depression, sensitivity that goes back generations on at least one side.

Your child has other symptoms that don’t fit the tic diagnosis cleanly — sleep issues, mood swings, a sense of being watched, a fear of specific rooms.

If most of that sounds familiar, this post is for you. If your child is responding well to standard treatment and the tics are improving, you may not need anything beyond what your medical team is already doing. This isn’t for every family. It’s for the families where the standard path isn’t fully working.

What Standard Medicine Says Causes Tics

I want to be clear before going any further: pediatric neurology and psychiatry have real explanations for tics, and those explanations matter.

Tourette syndrome is a recognized neurological condition with genetic and neurochemical underpinnings. Transient tic disorder accounts for many shorter episodes. PANDAS — pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections — explains sudden-onset tics in some kids following infection. OCD has well-studied neurological correlates.

These conditions are real. Treatment for them works for many children. If your child’s neurologist or psychiatrist has them on a treatment plan that’s helping, keep going with that.

What I’m offering isn’t a replacement for any of that. It’s a different layer to look at when the standard layer isn’t reaching the whole problem.

When the Medical Explanation Doesn’t Fully Fit

Most of the parents who find their way to my work have already been through the medical evaluations. They’ve had the MRI. They’ve had the streptococcal workup. They’ve been through Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics (CBIT). They’ve tried at least one medication, often several.

What brings them to me is some version of: the treatment is helping, but not enough. And the tics keep evolving in ways the doctor can’t fully explain.

Some of the patterns I see in those cases:

Tics that change form every few weeks in ways that don’t track with treatment changes.

Tics that worsen dramatically in specific environments — a relative’s house, a particular school, a room in your own home — and improve when the child is away.

Tics that intensify around sleep, especially in the wake-up window between 2 and 4 a.m.

Tics that started or worsened after the child was exposed to something the parents can identify in hindsight as energetically heavy — a death in the home, a visit somewhere that felt off, a piece of furniture or jewelry that came into the house, a friend or relative whose own situation was difficult.

Tics in children who are clearly sensitive, intuitive, or empathic in ways that go beyond ordinary childhood traits.

None of those are proof on their own. Together, they suggest something else may be in play.

What I’ve Seen in 15 Years of Working with Kids

I’ve worked with many children with tic disorders, OCD, and other compulsive presentations over the years. A few patterns have shown up consistently.

Sensitive kids pick up energetic parasites the same way adults do — but with less buildup, so the effects show up faster and more visibly. The behaviors we call tics can be one of the ways those energies manifest in a child whose nervous system is more open than most.

The child’s home environment matters. A heavy room, a portal on the property, an inherited object — these affect sensitive kids first and hardest. If your child’s tics improve at the grandparents’ house and worsen at home, the home is worth a closer look.

Medications often dim the child’s energetic sensitivity, which can quiet some symptoms but also makes the child more receptive to picking up more energy. I’ve worked with children where I had to clear them twice a day — once in the morning, once at night — because the medication that helped them sleep was also making them an open channel for more attachments.

That’s not an argument against the medications. They’re often necessary. It’s a description of what I’ve watched happen, over and over, when no one is addressing the energetic layer alongside the medical layer.

A Real Case: The Tourette’s Girl in New Zealand

Years ago, I saw a TV special on Tourette syndrome in New Zealand. One of the families on the show was a mother and her young daughter. The daughter’s tics were severe — vocal outbursts, motor tics, the whole picture. The mother was the president of the New Zealand Tourette Society. She had built her life around the condition and around supporting families living with it.

When I saw the daughter on screen, I knew immediately what I was looking at was energetic. I reached out. I offered to work with the girl for two weeks at no charge. The mother agreed.

The first thing I noticed was that I had to clear the girl twice a day. Once in the morning, once at night. That was unusual — most clearings hold for much longer. When I asked the mother how her daughter was sleeping, she told me the medication knocked her out. The light bulb went off for me. The medication was giving the girl sleep, but it was also dimming her energy enough that she was re-attaching to new parasites every cycle.

We kept going. Three to four weeks in, her tics were slowing dramatically. The outbursts were almost gone. The mother reported the change but attributed it to a recent medication adjustment, not to the work I was doing.

Then the mother stopped engaging. I think — and this is just my read — that what I was doing threatened the framework she had built her life around. If her daughter’s condition wasn’t what she’d told a thousand other families it was, what did that mean for the work she’d dedicated herself to? I understood her position. I stopped the work, even though it was clearly helping.

About a month after I stopped, I saw a social media update from the family. Her daughter had developed a new tic. She wasn’t allowed to have sharp objects anymore — because if she got hold of one, she stabbed herself in the forehead with it.

That wasn’t a tic in the way the previous tics had been. That was a deeper shift. And it happened in the window after the clearing stopped.

I’m not telling that story to be dramatic or to make anyone afraid. I’m telling it because it’s the clearest example I have of what I’ve watched many times in smaller versions: the energetic layer is real, the clearing can move it significantly, and when no one addresses it, sometimes things get worse in ways that don’t fit the standard model of what a tic is.

If your child’s tics aren’t responding to standard treatment — or if you’ve watched them escalate in ways that don’t feel like the diagnosis fully explains — that’s exactly what Herman’s gifted 15-minute call is for. No pressure, no sales pitch, and no asking you to step away from your child’s medical team. He’ll listen, give you his read on what’s likely going on, and tell you whether a family clearing is the right next step. The booking link is at the end of this post.

Why Sensitive Kids Are More Prone to Energetic Tics

Children pick up energy more easily than adults. They haven’t built the same filters yet. Their nervous systems are wide open.

Some children are wider open than others. The kids who feel everything. The kids who walk into a room and announce that they don’t like it. The kids who come home from school exhausted not from the work but from the emotional weight of being around forty other people. The kids who can tell you something is wrong with you before you’ve said a word.

Those kids are the ones who tend to develop unexplained physical symptoms — tics, stomach issues, headaches, sleep disturbances — when the energy around them is heavy. Their bodies are processing what other people aren’t even registering.

When you stack a sensitive nervous system on top of a hard home environment, a heavy school, a relative who’s struggling, or a piece of land with history — and then you ask that child to keep functioning — the body finds an outlet. Sometimes the outlet looks like a tic.

I Am Not Telling You to Stop Your Child’s Treatment

I want to be direct about this because it matters.

Nothing in this post is an argument to stop your child’s medication, drop your neurologist, skip behavioral therapy, or ignore a real diagnosis. Tics and OCD can be serious. Self-harm tics are serious. Your child’s medical team is providing real care.

What I’m offering is a complementary layer. The kids I work with stay on their treatment plans, stay with their doctors, and continue everything that’s helping. The clearing addresses something the medical layer isn’t designed to address, and the two layers tend to support each other rather than compete.

If after a clearing you start to feel like your child could try a lower medication dose, that’s a conversation for you and the prescribing doctor. Not for me. Not for the internet. Your child’s medical team needs to be involved in any change to their treatment.

What Often Changes When a Child Is Cleared

When I work with a child carrying an energetic component to their tics, families usually see some combination of these changes:

The tics quiet. Not always all at once. Sometimes a particular tic stops within days. Sometimes the overall intensity drops over a few weeks. Sometimes a tic that had been escalating just stops getting worse.

Sleep improves. Many of these children also have sleep issues that nobody had connected to the tics. Sleep often shifts first.

The child seems more themselves. Parents will say they’re back or I feel like I have my kid again. That language comes up over and over with sensitive kids.

Outbursts decrease. The compulsive intensity around tics — the desperation to release them, the distress when they can’t — softens.

The home calms. When I clear the whole family and the home, the system gets quieter, and the child has less to react to.

In some cases, families end up working with their doctor over time to reduce medication. In other cases, the medication keeps doing important work and they stay on it. Both outcomes are fine.

What About OCD and Compulsive Behaviors?

A lot of what I’ve described here also applies to OCD compulsions and other repetitive behaviors.

The looping thoughts. The need to repeat something a specific number of times. The intrusive images that won’t quiet. The compulsion that has to be performed before sleep. These can have energetic components in the same way tics do — outside energies generating mental and physical loops that the child experiences as their own.

If your child has been diagnosed with OCD and is responding well to ERP therapy and medication, keep going. If they’re not — or if the compulsions keep evolving in ways nobody can fully explain — the energetic layer is worth considering.

Get a Gifted 15-Minute Call With Herman

If your child’s tics, compulsions, or repetitive behaviors aren’t fully responding to standard treatment, you don’t have to keep watching them struggle through it alone.

Herman offers a gifted 15-minute consultation — no pressure, no sales pitch, no requirement that you step away from your child’s medical team. It’s a real conversation about what’s been going on with your child, what’s likely behind it, and whether a family energy clearing is the right next layer to add.

Tell him a little bit about what you’ve been seeing — when it started, how the tics have evolved, what’s been tried, and what isn’t fully working. He’ll listen, give you his read, and tell you straight whether this work is for your family.

Book your gifted 15-minute call →

Many parents say the clearing was the missing piece — not a replacement for the medical care, but the layer that finally allowed it to do its real work.

Frequently Asked Questions

What causes sudden tics in children?

Standard medical explanations include Tourette syndrome, transient tic disorder, and PANDAS — a post-infectious autoimmune cause. For some children, none of those fully explain what’s happening. Sudden tics can also have an energetic component when a sensitive child has been exposed to a heavy environment, a difficult event, or an object carrying outside energy.

Can stress cause tics in kids?

Stress is a recognized trigger for tic onset and worsening. Many kids develop their first tics during a stressful period — a move, a divorce, a loss, a school transition. For sensitive children, stress also lowers their natural energetic filters, which can make them more susceptible to picking up energetic parasites that show up as tics.

Are tics ever caused by spiritual or energetic factors?

In my experience, yes — at least sometimes. Not every tic is energetic, and standard medical evaluation should come first. But when tics evolve in ways the medical model can’t explain, worsen in specific environments, or don’t respond fully to standard treatment, the energetic layer is worth looking at.

Can a child develop a new tic suddenly?

Yes. Sudden onset of a new tic can be part of a transient tic disorder, a flare in Tourette syndrome, a PANDAS episode, or — for some sensitive kids — a sign that something energetic shifted recently. A new piece of furniture, a visitor with heavy energy, a difficult event in the family, or a move can all coincide with a new tic appearing.

Why does my child’s tic get worse at night?

Many children’s tics worsen as the day winds down. Medical explanations include fatigue lowering inhibition, sensory withdrawal as activity decreases, and bedtime anxiety. From the energetic side, the evening hours are when the home’s energy tends to be quietest, which can make a sensitive child more aware of what’s around them and more vulnerable to attachments.

Can OCD be caused by spiritual issues?

OCD is a well-recognized medical condition with neurological underpinnings, and standard treatment works for many people. That said, some compulsive loops have an energetic component — outside energies generating thoughts and urges that the person experiences as their own. If standard OCD treatment isn’t fully reaching the issue, the energetic layer may be worth exploring.

Can energy healing help with tics?

In my experience, energy clearing has helped many children with tics — particularly those whose tics didn’t fully respond to standard treatment. It’s not a guaranteed cure, it’s not a replacement for medical care, and it doesn’t work on every child. But for sensitive kids carrying energetic attachments, the change can be significant.

Is Tourette’s spiritual or genetic?

Tourette syndrome has documented genetic and neurochemical factors and is recognized as a medical condition. For some children with a Tourette diagnosis, however, the standard treatment doesn’t fully reach the underlying issue — and what I’ve often found in those cases is an energetic layer that the medical model isn’t designed to address. Both can be true at the same time.

Should I take my child off tic medication?

No — not based on this post or any conversation with me. If your child is on medication and considering changes to that medication, that decision belongs to you and your child’s prescribing doctor. Many families find energy clearing works alongside medication. Any tapering or discontinuation needs to be medically supervised.

What’s the difference between tics and PANDAS?

PANDAS — pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections — is one specific cause of sudden-onset tics and OCD in children, triggered by an autoimmune response to strep. Standard tics and Tourette syndrome have different mechanisms. If your child’s tics started suddenly after an infection, PANDAS evaluation should be part of the workup.