Seminar Series

Endorsement
“Ms. Natenshon is a gifted and engaging presenter in the area of eating disorders and its treatment. Her grasp of the material, ability to synthesize important insights and impart them in a highly "usable" manner is impressive and inspiring. Her clinical sensitivity and passion for her subject empowers her audience to leave feeling enhanced and prepared to face clinical challenges. By combining clear thinking, concrete tools and a wealth of clinical experience, she helps you understand not only what to do when treating this population, but why."

- Ava Carn-Watkins, Ph.D. Assistant Director, Graduate Program in Counseling Psychology
The Family Institute at Northwestern University Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies

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Click here to learn about Full- or Half-day Training Options

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Stepping Up To the Plate

The Power of Enlightened Parenting in Healing a Child's Eating Disorder

A 5-Part On-Site Lecture Series for Parents, Schools, and Community Groups

Parents confronting an eating disorder in their child no longer need not feel lost or frightened.

Enlightened and empowered parenting is possibly the most invaluable resource for the recovering child, professional team, and healing process.  Eating disorders are family system disorders; they affect and involve every member of the family, through dysfunctional behaviors and recovery struggles played out at dinner tables and in family bathrooms. Parents need to turn love into action, the forward momentum of these tenacious disorders into healing. They need learn to diagnose disorders in their early stages, confront their child, put together an expert treatment team in support of their child's recovery, bring their child to care, and collaborate as ‘most valuable players’ on that team. The inclusion of parents, families and loved ones in family treatment (particularly with child and teen patients) insures that positive family system changes occur in tandem with, and reinforcing, the child’s recovery changes, offering efficacy in the pacing and sustainability of recovery.

Parents are not to blame for their child’s eating disorder. There is a lot they can do, however, to heal their child once afflicted, or prevent the worsening of a condition that may ultimately trigger eating disorder onset. Perhaps you've heard that eating disorders cannot be cured, that "once anorexic, always anorexic" Don't believe it. When enlightened parents learn how to respond effectively and leave no stone unturned, when help is optimal and effective support is forthcoming, eating disorders are completely and fully curable in 80 percent of cases.

Parents of disordered children need to:

·          Become knowledgeable

·          Become proactive.

·          Take charge…

…..until such time as the child is capable of resuming self-care, self-regulation and self-control. Parents who are not part of the solution run the risk of becoming part of the problem.

This 5 part workshop and training series will provide parents the know-how, impetus, permission and confidence needed….in one’s self, in one’s parenting, and in a convoluted recovery process… to parent the child effectively through this most pivotal and transformational time. Having gone through this process together with your child, the breadth and depth of the parent/child relationship will be enhanced for life. When brought to a successful outcome, the eating disorder recovery process results in your child “getting her self back;” and parents “getting their child back.”

 

These workshops will teach parents what they need to know in order to:

• Recognize disease
• Choose expert team professionals; parents learn what to listen for in prospective candidates, and to trust their instincts in making the best choices.
• Bring their child to treatment
• Help their child engage in treatment and stay engaged.
• Participate in treatment to accommodate the child’s changing needs.
• Remain flexible in supporting positive changes throughout the process.
• Refine their instincts and skills in communicating with the recovering child
• Learn to listen actively and with sensitivity to the child and to an elusive recovery process.
• Recognize hidden and hard to read indicators of recovery.
• Shepherd the recovery process to its completion.
• Encourage the professional team to communicate with each other for purposes of case management and trouble-shooting.
• Support the child appropriately throughout every stage of recovery, becoming more effective parents.
• Seek professional support, consultation and coaching for themselves.

Stepping Up to the Plate:
The Power of Enlightened Parenting in Healing a Child's Eating Disorder

Lecture Series Agenda

Parents are invited to participate in all, or individual segments of this five part lecture series. Each segment consists of a didactic lecture presentation, leaving time for questions, discussion, and professional consultation.


Session One
Facing the Challenge: Diagnosis and Managing Resistance
Preparing parents to prepare their child to heal

Segment goals:

• Seek professional support, consultation and coaching for themselves.
• To teach parents to identify what they see in their child, and to recognize signs that may not be not readily observable.
• To help parents gain the skills they need to become effectively responsive to signs and symptoms, to confront and bring their child to acceptance of professional care.
• To refute myths about eating disorders and misconceptions about parents being to blame in causing these diseases, dispelling parental guilt. To encourage parental participation as members of the treatment and recovery team.

Session Two
Expanding your Eating Disorder I.Q.
Educating yourself prepares you to educate your child throughout the treatment and recovery process… about these disorders and about how to anticipate and handle the experience of treatment and recovery.

Segment goals:

• To educate parents about eating disorders and their implications, to understand more fully the complexities of the child's experience.
• To develop insights into their own emotional responses and preparedness to handle their own personal challenges.
• To educate parents about what to anticipate upon entering the treatment process, and how to work with the process, the child, and the team.
• To inform parents about their role in recovery, sweeping out "the elephant under the chair."
• To inform parents about what qualities to seek in procuring the most expert professional care for their child and family.

Session Three
Treatment Nuts and Bolts

Treatment needs to be timely, diverse, integrative, motivational and respectful of the family system.

Segment goals:

• Learn what needs to happen in eating disorder treatment, how, when, why, and at what pace.
• Discover the unique obstacles to eating disorder recovery.
• Understand the unique nature of eating disorder change in an integrative process
• Determine whether your child's treatment is as effective as it could be.
• Understand what the recovery process looks like.
• Learn whether there may be more you could be doing with or for your child to enhance recovery outcomes.

Session Four
Recovery and Beyond

Recovery from an eating disorder is a complex and on-going process that occurs on many levels, at once, or over time.  A deceptive process, it fluxes and varies throughout its natural course, and at times may become hard to read and assess.  It is not unusual for behaviors that appear to signify “failure” to actually reflect growth and progress.

Segment goals:

• To recognize and repair a stuck recovery process.
• To recognize when a successful recovery progress may take on the appearance of failure.
• To recognize that anything less than a complete recovery from an eating disorder is not a sustainable or lasting recovery and is not good enough for your child.
• Sustaining yourself through the process.
• The many faces of recovery: recounting recovery stories.

Session Five
A Parent's Personal Journey

Parents and families suffer from the existence of an eating disorder within the family system, in tolerating its effects on the child, as well as impact on every member of the victim’s family and social system. Recovery from an ED is a recovery leading to better living …. For the rest of one’s life.  Children get their personality and self back; parents get their child back.

Segment goals:

• To become knowledgeable about how best to support your child throughout the treatment and recovery process and to manage your child, the disorder, the family response, and the professional team.
• Discover your own attitudes about food, weight and exercise, and whether they might in some respects, affect your recovering child.
• A parent’s emotional and behavioral accurate self-appraisal provides an opportunity for personal growth, as well as a deeper connection with your child.
• Identify your own counter transference issues throughout the recovery process.
• Improve your communications with your child and the parent/child relationship.

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