Supporting a Child in Treatment for Anorexia

How to help support your child if they are in treatment for Anorexia Nervosa:

To address their anxiety:

Listen with compassion

Ask if you can give them a hug or hold their hand
Help them identify their sources of stress outside of the eating disorder
Help them articulate their anxiety
Help them identify alternate ways (besides using eating disorder symptoms) to manage their anxiety
Don’t ever blame them for the disorder

To address the identity and avoidance issue:

Listen with compassion
Explore with them the question “Who am I?” and “Whom do I want to be?”
Help them identify the steps they need to take to become a person that has an identity beyond the person with an eating disorder.
Encourage them to identify and to express their feelings
Let them know it is ok to express anger and try not to become defensive when they express anger at you

To address the issue of self worth: * Listen with compassion * Remind them of what you and other people like about them. (E.g. Compassion, their smile) * Try to model healthy self esteem. If you need to seek professional help for your own self-esteem issues.

Ways to help them combat ‘the eating disorder voice’:

Listen
Help them identify how this voice has been hurtful and what it has taken away from them.
Brainstorm with the person what they have done in the past and what they can do in the future to make the voice go away
Help them come up with a plan for what t they could do to put this backstabbing friend in it’s place (e.g. visualizing the voice disappearing)

by Jill Cohen, M.S.W., LCSW