Advice for Parents

Interview sound bites

Please forgive the length of time between my recent posts.  Never did I realize the amount of time and energy it takes to plan a major fund raiser! Hopefully, life will return to "normal" after September 13th!

In the last few weeks I've had the opportunity to be interviewed on numerous television and radio stations--for those of you in northern California I'll be on "View From the Bay" on Channel 7 at 3PM today--wish me luck!  One show asked a number of important questions to which I'd like to share my answers with you:

Not cute enough

I had a doctor’s appointment today—a routine check-up, nothing serious.  At one point I shared with my physician our upcoming fund raiser and gave her a copy of our flier.  As I’ve mentioned before, we’re hosting the northern California premiere of the award-winning documentary, “America the Beautiful: Is America Obsessed with Beauty.”  My doctor read the movie’s title out loud and replied, “Well we know China is.”  It took me a moment to figure out what she was referring to.

“Heal thyself first”

Because we run a non-profit we are always in need of skilled volunteers to help our organization attain its goals.  I often receive emails from those who are somewhere along the “healing continuum” who desperately want to give back to the world in a meaningful way.  I applaud their courage.

The concern I have in these instances is the amount of time away from ED behaviors and disruptive thoughts.  So often those who suffer with an eating disorder tend to put others before self.  It can be difficult for them to comprehend that focusing on healing is not selfish nor does it lack great value.

What is it…??

In a conversation with my husband the other night I asked him the names of his elementary school teachers and what he most remembered about them.  He did far better than I, recalling all but his third grade teacher.  When it was my turn I was struck not so much by my inability to name as many of my teacher’s as he but by the one memory that instantly popped into my head.  My first grade teacher (whose name I DID recall) continually made derogatory comments about her body.  Once she remarked to another staff member as she came out to collect us from the playground, “I’m as big as a barn!”  Her comment puzzled me.  My grandfather had run a dairy farm…I knew how large a barn was.  This teacher was tall but she certainly did not come close to being the size of a barn.

Ways to help our young children with body woes

Last week I received the following comment on one of my blogs:

I am reading all of this in great fear. My beautiful 8 year old daughter is beginning to see herself as "fat", she only wants to sit and eat. I have not wanted to face the fact she may be started down the road of an eating disorder. But I think I may have to acknowledge this. Are there resources for a child this young? Thank you for having the courage to tell your story.

This question prompted me to do a bit of research on the web.  I was reminded of a number of phenomenal resources for moms worried about how their very young daughters and sons feel about their bodies.

Allowing others to “make” us feel responsible

Not too long ago, in the psychological community, the first step in treating someone suffering with an eating disorder was to attempt to perform a “parentectomy.”  It is now generally understood that when parents are educated to the ways in which they can help, they can be the most valuable first line of defense in their child’s healing process.  The world of psychology has come a long way in seeing the value of parent involvement in the treatment of eating disorders.

Musings triggered by mosquitoes

When Guillain-Barré Syndrome hit our daughter Jocelyn last year we had to cancel our flight to Florida and our first-ever cruise.  While going through paperwork a few weeks ago, I came across the cancelled flight information.  The refund had to be used by June 4th or it would be lost. Thus we found ourselves in Raleigh, North Carolina last week for a quick get-away to an especially green and lush part of the country that we’d never before seen.

Advice from a Scot

Gráinne Smith, the author of Families, Carers & Professionals, Skills-based Learning for Caring for a Loved One with an ED and Anorexia & Bulimia in the Family: One Parent’s Practical Guide to Recovery, was visiting from Scotland this week.  She had come to the States to attend the International Academy on Eating Disorders conference in Seattle.  It was wonderful to have her here when a mother with whom I’ve been meeting arrived to return a book I’d loaned her.  Her middle-school-aged daughter suffers with an eating disorder.

“Either stop living or get fat”

I finished reading Paulo Coelho’s, The Witch of Portobello last night. In an interview at the close of the book, Coelho explains that in this book he wanted to elaborate “On the feminine side of God.”  I am drawn to Coelho’s books because he “writes to understand [him]self.”  In reading his words, I often come to greater understandings about myself as well.

Towards the end of the book, Hagia Sofia, the protagonist’s “alter ego,” finishes a lecture to a gathering of spiritual-questing people while in a sort of trance (“alter ego”/”trance”:  concepts in the book too involved to explain here).  She spoke beautifully the message that has been the topic of many of my blog entries:

America the Beautiful, the movie

Last week my husband Tom and I were invited to fly into Chicago for the premiere of the movie, America the Beautiful (www.AmericatheBeautifuldoc.com), a documentary that reveals the ugly truth behind our country’s unhealthy obsession with beauty.  The Director, Darryl Roberts, spent a couple of days with us a few years ago filming during and after presentations we gave at the Claremont Colleges in southern California.  We’ve been filmed by PBS, MTV and numerous other “Independent” film projects and have always made the cutting room floor.  We had no reason to believe this time would be any different even though Darryl assured us, “Trust me…you are in my movie.”