How do you explain these things to a toddler?

[Eerrnohun]

Paying at the self service yesterday and a man who was in the queue for the manned till started letting out shrieks/screaming.
We were quite close to him, so my soon to be 3 year old kept turning around and asking what that noise was. I've seen this guy around quite a bit and he's always got one of those green/daisy lanyards on, so knowing there was nothing bad going on I just kind of quietly said it's ok, and focus his attention back to helping me with the shopping, but being a curious toddler and hearing a lot of noise he kept asking.
The man must have clocked him looking at him and then got a bit upset and said "I'm so sorry, I've got Tourette's" and kept repeating sorry. He looked so down. I told him it's fine and you've no need to apologise, by which point we were finished and left the shop.
Toddler once again asking about "what that man said mummy" once we'd left the shop so I tried to give him a very short, basic explanation. That was that, he saw a lorry and we moved on.

But it's been playing on my mind because of the look on the mans face and I don't know if I handled it right in the moment. Before he told me he had Tourette's I didn't know what was wrong, just that we didn't need to worry. But if you're with a child who see's someone with a visible or audible disability, how do you manage it? Do you just try and get them to ignore it? If it's say, someone using a prosthetic, what do you say?

I would keep it simple, something like, "Everyone is different. Some people find it hard to use a quiet voice, some people find it hard to use a loud voice. That man was using a loud voice but he was trying very hard to use a normal voice." Maybe that's not the right answer and someone will have a better response but I personally wouldn't feel comfortable to ignore it as DC will encounter children in school who need extra help.

With a very young child I would just tell them it's ok and then try to distract them, rather than giving explanations that would be audible to the person in question.

That's what I did. While we were in the shop literally said "it's ok" and focussed his attention back to the shopping. It was outside when he kept asking that I gave the toddler friendly explanation so the guy wouldn't have heard me.

But I felt like in the moment in the shop buy telling my son it's ok, that had upset the man because I he thought my child was upset (he wasn't).

Personally I would acknowledge the situation. Children aren’t dumb and it’s dismissive of the person and their existence/disability to try and distract the child from the conversation. I would avoid using terms like ‘normal’ because every different situation someone is in is their ‘normal’. I would just say that person has a condition called Tourette’s which means sometimes they say and shout things accidentally but it is nothing to be worried about.

This exact same situation happened with my 3 (nearly 4) year old.

I said “he has Tourette’s which makes him say or shout things he doesn’t want to. It’s like sneezing. He can’t stop the words coming out.”

He’s one of these kids who will ask about every bloody thing so I just answer with the truth in a way I think is appropriate for him.