Advice for Parents: If Your Daughter or Son Has an Eating Disorder, Here Are My Top 10 Recommendations
You may be seeing changes in your daughter or son’s demeanour, like increased emotional outbursts, withdrawing to their rooms more often, and avoiding situations where they have to eat with the family. You may notice physical changes like weight loss or gain, and lack of energy. Psychologically, they may be having a hard time concentrating, becoming more forgetful and saying negative things about their bodies.
Eating disorder diagnoses like anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, ARFID or another specified eating disorder can be hard on whole families, who want to support their children but don’t know what to do.
Recommendations for parents
It is common for tension to be high in households affected by eating disorders. The topic of food can set off tempers and mealtimes are often a time of contention, which need to be faced several times a day, every day.
I’ve put together some general advice that I give to the parents of my clients, who are unsure how they can help. I hope these recommendations are helpful for you:
Pause. Notice if you’re starting conversations from a highly emotional place. If so, it’s okay to acknowledge that and agree to come back to the conversation in half an hour. Then go and do something that helps you regulate.
Vice versa if you notice your daughter or son is highly emotional – they will not be able to have a rational conversation with you in this state, so encourage them to do what they need to do to regulate before coming back to the conversation.
Focus on their feelings. Fights about food will be an ongoing struggle until they are further along in recovery. When you notice this happening, try to refocus your attention on how they’re feeling and what they’re experiencing.
For example, are they scared? Angry outbursts often mask feeling hurt or scared. Overwhelmed? Having a hard time identifying how they feel? Having a bad day overall? Ask them more about these things, rather than focusing on food.
Don’t take it personally. And try again. It might feel like you’ve tried everything to have open communication with your child, but they remain aloof or resistant. It’s unlikely this is personal – it probably has more to do with them not being ready.
If you’re not getting much of a response from them, remember #2 above: focus on their feelings and what they’re experiencing. Remind them that you support them no matter what they’re feeling and they can come to you anytime to talk. Opening up needs to be in their time.
Separate them from their eating disorder. It can be helpful to think of the eating disorder as a separate voice or entity. The illness has taken over their brains and likely diminished the personality of the person you know, putting their thoughts onto two parallel tracks: food and their bodies.
When you’re arguing with your daughter or son about food, you’re arguing with their eating disorder. Remembering that separation can help you not be angry at them for not eating. In fact, you can both be angry at the illness.
Don’t DO anything. Knowing when to act and when to step back is difficult, but it’s important to remember that your daughter or son doesn’t always need you to take action. Most of the time, they probably just need to be reminded that you support them (not the eating disorder). Take the time to regularly check in and connect with them (even if they push you away) and genuinely listen without distractions when they do share something.
Saying that, it’s time to switch into action when they need to get into treatment and advocate on their behalf with the healthcare system. This is something they probably don’t have the motivation or energy to do for themselves.
Don’t punish them if they’re being secretive about food. If your daughter or son is hiding food or won’t tell you what or when they’re eating, this is part of their eating disorder, not because of their relationship with you.
The secretiveness around food is an issue that can be resolved through therapy, so for now see this behaviour as an indicator that they’re struggling but not something that needs to be punished or emphasized by you.
Mealtimes are not about food. When sitting down to eat, make an effort to talk about anything but the food. In fact, it’s even better not to focus on your daughter or son much during the meal, as it’s a stressful time for them.
Try to keep the mood light and talk about “easy” things: activities people are involved in, funny stories from the day, updates on friends and family members, upcoming plans, and reminiscing about a past trip or experience together. Essentially, things that are distracting and non-stressful.
No diet foods. When stocking your cupboards with food, be mindful of diet, low-calorie or fat-free foods. Having them in the house signals to your daughter or son that it’s okay to choose them, which reinforces their restrictive mindset and can lead to further restriction or binging. It’s important for everyone in the household to avoid diet culture and for parents to model balanced eating and exercising.
If one of you is on a special diet for health reasons that includes low-fat food (for example), remind your daughter or son that this way of eating is a “prescription” from a doctor for a specific reason and is not how everyone should be eating. Whole foods should be encouraged and normalized.
Explore your own values. At some point, your daughter or son started to measure their self-worth by their weight and what foods they eat/don’t eat. It can be helpful for them if parents explore what their core beliefs are for them: how are they rewarded? What achievements are focused on and praised?
As well as valuing a thin body, your daughter or son probably also values all things productive: achieving the best and doing things perfectly. Emphasizing other things – like personality, generosity and kindness as measures of self-worth – can help oppose their (very narrow) values.
Enlist outside help. If you can see that your daughter or son is eating very little but is still refusing to get help, I recommend my online course, How to help your teenager with anorexia.
It was developed for teenagers who don’t believe there is anything wrong with the way they’re eating. I designed the course to gently introduce them to what is going on beneath their reluctance to eat and how this can lead to a more serious illness, all in a casual and non-threatening way.
Above all, know that eating disorders are not caused by parenting. Your daughter or son is experiencing a complex illness that is caused by a combination of biological, psychological, and social and cultural factors. Getting them help early is key to turning their thoughts and behaviours around.
If you’re interested in one-on-one therapy for them, please see my services for teenagers here.
