Eating Disorders – My Child Has Anorexia Or Bulimia and My Parenting Is not Working!
Parenting a daughter with an eating disorder is a whole new ballgame. It changes the way you look at the world and life now feels very scary. You begin to see yourself differently and you question everything you have done, are doing and will do as a parent.
Give yourself a few days to freak out, feel guilty, and be terrified because you are going to feel it. Then get ready to shift your thinking. Up to this point how you have parented your daughter has worked. She was mostly responsible, performed well in school, enjoyed her relationships and was for the most part, probably respectful towards you.
Most likely though, she is not that same little girl you knew. She has changed, so her needs have changed. Now you have to change and transform how you parent her.
To a certain extent, all parents feel like they have to “fake it til ‘they make it,” in their parenting. You always hear the humorous line, “My kid did not come with an instruction book.” When your child develops an eating disorder, some kids’ problems look like paradise. “Oh, if only my daughter was just failing school or smoking in the school parking lot.”
Parenting a child with an eating disorder is like a twilight zone experience and you keep waiting and praying for the day when your daughter is going to see she is in another world and come back. Alice in Wonderland is a great metaphor for someone with an eating disorder. She has fallen into a rabbit hole, does not know how she got there and can not figure out how to get out.
I can not stress enough this paradigm shift you have to make. Every parent has to recreate themselves in the process of helping their daughter get well. The ways they used to parent do not work anymore.
You have to be more in tune than you ever were, yet not smother her. You have to monitor her health and nutrition, yet not put her under a microscope. You have to set more boundaries, but not be over controlling and demanding.
These are not easy tasks for any parent, but when you are in crisis and scared to death for your daughter’s life, it is even more difficult. This is where an objective person may be needed to help you with this transition in your parenting style.
When you are flying blind, it is such a relief to have someone flying with you who can help you navigate your way through this. Do not hesitate to get help. You will sleep better at night with someone helping you who has made this trip before and knows the way.
Source by Lynn A Moore
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
