By advocating for their child's health, parents enhance the well being of the entire family. In instances where emotional development is interrupted, however, as in the case of the eating disordered adolescent, or when the malnourished child has lost her capacity for self-regulation through distortions and compulsion, she turns to the eating disorder to provide the control she lacks. Under these circumstances, it is the parents' right, obligation, and in fact, responsibility to pick up the slack and provide the controls that the child lacks until such time as the child is able to resume self-control. Personal freedom flourishes in a framework of structure. It has been shown that authoritative parents raise the most emotionally resilient children.
Parental involvement has many faces.
Taking charge where the child cannot, parents may provide meals, go to school to meet their child for lunch, offer consequences to the resistant child, etc., much as a nurse would do in a hospital in-patient unit. Younger children typically benefit most from such stringent controls. Parents need to do whatever it takes to nourish the child both physically and emotionally. It is for each family to devise and enact whatever techniques and protocols work best for them. Parents might benefit, too, from couples'counseling, where the child's therapist advises and guides them in understanding eating disorders, their child, and their role in recovery.