by Amanda Roberts

Created on: October 12, 2009

You see the signs, but you try to ignore them. You hope that her odd eating habits are just a function of puberty, but something inside you tells you that is just not the case. When you find out that your teen has an eating disorder, it can feel like you failed as a parent. You sit and analyze everything you said and wonder, was it all those times you made them clean their plate? Was it when you told them that they were growing up so fast? An eating disorder is excruciatingly hard to deal with, but hopefully the follow advice can help you learn to cope a little better.

1. Stop looking backward. Your first instinct when you find out that your teen has a eating disorder is to try and find blame for what has happened. You may look back and think of all the things you could or should have done, or wondered if you should have kept them away from one relative or another, but those are the thoughts you need to distance yourself from. You cannot change the past no matter how hard you try, so decide to look forward not backward.

2. Educate yourself. Learn about the signs of disordered eating and the effects it can have on your child's health. Read books written by other parents, and read books written by those recovered from eating disorders. The best book I can recommend is Distorted: How a Mother and Daughter Unraveled the Truth, the Lies, and the Realities of an Eating Disorder by Lorri and Taryn Benson. I recommend this book to anyone exposed to an eating disorder because it is written by a mother-daughter pair and illustrates how monstrous an eating disorder can be. You not only get the worry and the diagnostic perspective of Lorri, but you see how deeply having an eating disorder effects Taryn.

3. Find support. This is essential, before you can help your child you need to be able to support yourself. Support groups for parents exist in many cities and are prevalent online. Find a group of parents you can relate to and rely on and form the connections you will so desperately need when you first find treatment for your teen.

4. Find help for your teen. Most eating disorder groups recommend an integrated approach to help your teen. Medical help is usually your first thought and it is important. Regular meetings with a nutritionist or a medical doctor trained in treating eating disorders are incredibly important. You teen needs to learn how to create and maintain a healthy eating plan and needs someone to make sure that they are regaining or maintaining weight in

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