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Boundaries Around Discussing your Child’s Eating Disorder
It can be tough to know about eating disorders in children or how to talk with someone about their eating disorder, especially when it’s your child. Even so, having these difficult conversations are incredibly important to your child’s recovery, and you can learn how to navigate them more easily.
When Asking About Eating Disorders in Children
Ask Without Accusing
How you approach your child when discussing their eating disorder is crucial. Parents know all-too-well how quickly a child or teen can become like a turtle going into their shell when faced with something they don’t want to talk about.
All parents worry about the safety and health of their kids. This mixture of love and fear can be overwhelming when you feel your child is in danger, and this can result in urgent and frantic communication styles.
To this point, it is also important to treat this as a discussion with your child, not a debate. No one is “right” or wrong” in this conversation. You all have the same end goal – for your child to be happy and healthy.
Practice communicating calmly and effectively before you approach your child to ensure that, when you talk with them, it is a conversation centered around love and not fear.
Consider Your Own Behaviors
What you say in this conversation is just as important as how you say it.
When your child struggles with disordered eating, it is not only their lives and decisions that must change to help them achieve recovery.
You must also examine your attitudes, behaviors, and word-choice around the body, eating, and self-worth and consider the impact this may have on your child in recovery.
One study noted, “In addition to direct criticism, parent modeling of dieting and weight‐control behaviors, such as restriction and abstention, was also found to significantly increase a child’s dissatisfaction with their weight or shape and the likelihood of engaging in dieting and bulimia nervosa‐type behaviors [1].”
If you engaged in these behaviors before, do not shame yourself. So many of us are a product of diet culture. It will not help your child for you to feel guilty about their disorder. However, it can help them for you to make a change as you converse with them about their challenges with body image and food.
As one study aptly stated, “parents can also counteract the impact…by modeling protective behaviors for their children; by displaying positive body image and healthy eating habits, and avoiding reinforcement of appearance stereotypes [1].”
Respect Their Boundaries
Your child is going through a very trying and vulnerable experience right now. It is likely that, upon you finding out, they felt exposed, raw, and out of control.
As such, it is important to ask them what their boundaries are as it relates to the discussion of their eating disorders.
Is there a certain time of day that is better to have these conversations such as after school so that they don’t go to school distressed or upset?
Are they okay with you letting other family members know, or do they want to keep it between the two of you until they feel more comfortable? How can you approach them when you are concerned about their behavior without them feeling attacked?
Considering these lifestyle and communication aspects doesn’t mean communication will go seamlessly every time, but it can help your child feel more in control of their narrative and more comfortable sharing when they are comfortable.
Resources:
[1] Hart, L. M., et al. (2014). Parents and prevention: a systematic review of interventions involving parents that aim to prevent body dissatisfaction or eating disorders. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 48:2.About the Author:
Margot Rittenhouse, MS, PLPC, NCC is a therapist who is passionate about providing mental health support to all in need and has worked with clients with substance abuse issues, eating disorders, domestic violence victims, and offenders, and severely mentally ill youth.
As a freelance writer for Eating Disorder Hope and Addiction Hope and a mentor with MentorConnect, Margot is a passionate eating disorder advocate, committed to de-stigmatizing these illnesses while showing support for those struggling through mentoring, writing, and volunteering. Margot has a Master’s of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Johns Hopkins University.
The opinions and views of our guest contributors are shared to provide a broad perspective on eating disorders. These are not necessarily the views of Eating Disorder Hope, but an effort to offer a discussion of various issues by different concerned individuals.
We at Eating Disorder Hope understand that eating disorders result from a combination of environmental and genetic factors. If you or a loved one are suffering from an eating disorder, please know that there is hope for you, and seek immediate professional help.
Published October 17, 2019, on EatingDisorderHope.com
Reviewed & Approved on October 17, 2019, by Jacquelyn Ekern MS, LPC
The EatingDisorderHope.com editorial team comprises experienced writers, editors, and medical reviewers specializing in eating disorders, treatment, and mental and behavioral health.
