Parental roles in facilitating recovery will be varied and fluid, dictated by the changing needs and capacities of the child patient and by the requirements of disease and recovery. The nature and quality of parental involvement will be determined by intention and interpersonal skills, sensitivity to the child's needs, and the receptiveness of child and therapist. 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.