What do parents of a child with an eating disorder need?

Today I am looking for your feedback on this question. This month I am starting to work with a business mentor who will help me bring my services to many more parents impacted by eating disorders.

I say parents because she wants me to narrow it down, I am very aware that there are sisters, wives, brothers, friends, etc who are seriously impacted by the nightmare of loving someone with an eating disorder.

I would love to hear what else describes this person and what other needs a parent of a child with an eating disorder might have. Please comment or send me an email.

Here is what I came up with:
Parents impacted by a child with an eating disorder that I can serve are:

• Female
• Spiritual value based families balancing work and family time
• Married
• age 35-55
• panicked and fearful about their child’s eating disorder
• looking for resources and skills for saving their families
• believe in coaching
• love reading self-help books
• value being pro-active about maintaining health
• value education
• have graduated from college
• non-smokers
• feeling hopeless about how to help their child with an ed
• Don’t know where to turn for help for the ed
• concerned that their child will die
• want my services to give them answers and calm
• need help coping with their anxiety about child’s ed
• need help understanding basics of what makes someone with an ed tick
• want to reclaim their joy and peace while child is sick with ed
• want to save their marriage that is being impacted by the child with ed
• are afraid this ed will destroy their own health and career
• worry what this ed is doing to their other children

• searching for help for families impacted by eating disorders, how to parent a child with an eating disorder

• want someone to talk to who understands the nightmare and frustration of parenting a child with an eating disorder

Messages to our First Lady

As many of you know, there has been a lot of buzz in the eating disorders world about comments the press tells us that the first lady made about her daughters' sizes. Having learned over the past couple of years that what really matters is fitness and health, not size or weight I've had some thoughts about the matter. I'm realizing that fitness and health are what I always have valued and I'd been led to believe that weight and size were directly influencing the former two.

I am very grateful to two of my "parent heros" who share my passion for making eating disorders a thing of the past. Both Laura Collins and Doris Smeltzer have addressed this directly with Michelle Obama and I commend them both for eloquently and elegantly doing so. Both of them handled it with grace, style and respect of the first lady.

I am sharing with you the links to their blogs so you can read for yourself what they had to say. I hope that Mrs. Obama will get a chance to see and hear what they have to share also. For I too believe she is a very smart woman who like many of us has been led to believe that size and weight determine our fitness and health. My wish is that our first lady will study this as so many of us have and make her own choices about this matter. Of course I am hoping she will see the validity of this concept and use her position to share this with our health care providers so that they too can do no harm.

Thank you Laura Collins http://eatingwithyouranorexic.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-eating-disorder-world-wants-mrs.html? and Doris Smeltzer http://www.eatingdisordersblogs.com/parents/2010/02/a-message-to-our-first-lady.html

Eating Disorders Parent Support Group

I can’t believe it’s been 7 years since I led one of these but after many requests for this in the Twin Cities, it’s time. I keep hearing from therapists who treat people with eating disorders that the families of their clients need this - no doubt. The book is in the publication process and I'm not writing and editing all the time now, so it's here!

This is the chance for families to be able to talk with other families who "get it" for unless you have lived this horror, it's tough to really understand what it is like loving someone who is in the grips of an eating disorder. We'll have some group coaching, someone to listen to you, acknowledge the crisis you are in as well as the losses you are experiencing, give you some encouragement and connect you with your greatest source of strength.

Parent/Family/Friends Support Group ~ beginning this March! This is for anyone who cares about someone with an eating disorder – not just parents!

I can’t believe it’s been 7 years since I led one of these but after many requests for this in the Twin Cities, it’s time.

Details: 10-Week Family/Friends Support for Eating Disorders
Location: Ridgedale Library - 12601 Ridgedale Dr. Minnetonka, MN 55305
Space: Meeting room on 1st floor below library
Dates: Wednesdays Beginning March 3 2010
Time: 5-6:30pm
Cost: $10/person or $15/couple per week or pay for all 10 weeks up front and SAVE $10 – only $90.00 for all ten weeks by paying in advance.
Led by: Becky Henry, CPCC
Register in advance so we can reserve the room – must have at least 5 people signed up.

Check out the website for more information (outline) on the workshops page at http://www.HopeNetwork.info or email me with questions.

Please feel free to pass this along to anyone who helps people with eating disorders including: therapists, dieticians, school nurses that you know ~ thanks!

Reaching Out Against Eating Disorders - ROAED

I am so happy to share with you this wonderful opportunity for families living with eating disorders! If you can be in the New York area on March 20th this looks to be a great opportunity to make your own - Journey To Hope

Here is their information:
Saturday, March 20, 2010 at 10:00 am - 5 pm, The Lighthouse International Conference Center, 111 East 59th Street, New York, NY

Please join ROAED and RAMS for a day of education, renewal and friendship. This event is for parents, spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, and other loved ones of those suffering from an eating disorder. Presentations will include guest speakers, music, art, coping skills and much more.

Visit www.familymentors.org to register.
Registration deadline is February 20, 2010.
Tickets $125 per person, lunch included.

Our goal with this workshop is to bring parents, mothers, fathers, boyfriends, husbands, and other loved ones of those suffering from an eating disorder together to empower you to feel you are not alone. It is to give you the freedom to realize it is okay to take care of yourself, as a person, and that in this way set an example for your child that you can survive this difficult time. We want to be able to educate as well as give a refreshing and new outlook on the recovery process. We envision that a Journey to Hope is the first of many workshops we can offer families.

Formal invitation and detailed program will follow.

For further information call ROAED at 212-935-2015 or RAMS at 585-797-3964.