If you are part of a parent team trying to refeed your child, chances are that you’ve faced conflict with your spouse—over appropriate strategies, contingencies, meal schedules, foods, amounts…and the list goes on. Regardless of the content of the conflict, the eating disorder loves to divide and conquer, to exploit parental conflict and take advantage of it.
Don’t let conflict with your spouse distract you from the long term goal—saving your child’s life. If you feel that you and your spouse are in conflict too often, pick a calm time to sit down and privately discuss it. By reviewing your areas of conflict (and agreement), you can develop an action plan for improving your teamwork and making you a truly united team. This will maximize your chances for successful refeeding and hopefully help boot the eating disorder out of your family’s life for good.
This is such an important topic. Even when parents both love their child dearly and want nothing but the best for her, working together can be big challenge in the midst of such a scary and overwhelming illness. I think your advice to pick a quiet moment to privately work out differences and note areas of agreement is right on target. It's so important to remember strengths in ourselves and our loved ones during our toughest times.
Posted by: Jane Cawley | June 01, 2009 at 04:22 PM