Advice for Parents by Doris Smeltzer

Unconditional acceptance

I facilitate a peer-led body image support group at one of our local high schools.  Every week I am stunned when I listen to the pain the students bring to group around “body.”  This group averages about 17 attendees each week—they come because of their own needs so this is not a representative “sampling” of the campus or community by any means, but the thing that saddens me the most in this group is the pain and agony caused by the comments and actions of their parents around food, weight, body size, and looks.

Continuation of last week’s posting…

In last week’s blog I promised to give more information on releasing guilt and getting the deeper meanings from our habitual statements and behaviors.  What I know, is that I cannot expect my child to do what I cannot.  I am the adult and I need to model adult behaviors.

Musings on guilt and metaphor…

A few days ago I received an email from a young woman.  Although she did not reveal her age, I had the sense that she may have been in high school or the early years of college.  She has suffered with bulimia for several years.  She wrote because she was in the process of reading our book, Andrea’s Voice: Silenced by Bulimia, and felt compelled to tell me that I was not the cause of Andrea’s eating disorder.