<p>My daughter, a skinny little thing, is worried about the "freshman 15," which I explained to her describes college kids who don't have three seasons of mandatory sports. Unfortunately, very recently I have reason to believe my daughter has taken up a new form of weight loss while away over the summer, and with just days to go to boarding school, am worried about her.</p>
<p>What do I do? She doesn't know that I know. Her dad and I are trying to figure out how to approach this.</p>
<p>The sad reality is quite a number of girls in the high-pressure BS environment have an eating disorder. At least one of S’s female friends is taking this year off because of such.</p>
<p>I would privately voice your concerns the school. The staff often are trained to be alert for this issue and notice tell-tale habits of eating disorder.</p>
<p>Kittenygoodness, first, <<hugs>>. As the mother of a daughter, I know this must be an enormous weight on your mind.</hugs></p>
<p>If she’s a “skinny little thing” at the start of 9th grade, she should, ah, “blossom” in the next four years. That’s perfectly natural. So first, I think you should be careful to help your daughter to accept that she will gain weight in the next four years, as her body matures. That’s very different from weight gain from unregulated eating. </p>
<p>I think you should try to set up appointments for the first day (send emails or call) to speak privately with your daughter’s advisor, and the dorm parent and the nurses & school psychologist. I think it should be possible to do this during the business of the arrival day, without letting your daughter know your worries. Let one parent carry stuff from the car, and set up the room, while the other parent heads to the health center to “check on paperwork.” If it can’t all be fit in on the first day, could one parent arrange to stay overnight to meet with people on the second day? You could claim that everything wouldn’t fit into one car.</p>
<p>If you have reasons for concern now, the adults who see your daughter daily should know. It may be nothing. Some people stop eating when they’re under pressure, and your daughter may be stressed about the looming start of school. Her coach should know, too. </p>
<p>Most schools have systems in place to monitor freshmen more closely than upperclassmen. Freshmen must check in to breakfast, for example. </p>
<p>I would take the issue seriously, though. A friend’s daughter was anorexic at BS. According to her mother, the school worked with the family to encourage her to maintain a healthy weight. For example, she couldn’t play sports if her weight dropped below a certain point. A school can only do that if the adults know of the problem. I do know of girls who have had to take medical leaves because of eating disorders, so it is better to be vigilant than to do nothing and hope it goes away.</p>
<p>@GMTplus7, I don’t think boarding schools give girls eating disorders. I think the sort of “perfect daughter” who’s at risk for developing eating disorders is often very strong in many areas–smart, good grades, active, etc.</p>
<p>periwinkle. agreed. that was poorly stated by me.</p>
<p>As someone who’s lived with boarding school kids for almost a decade now, please let me put in a plea for you not to let her start the school year without you having a conversation with her current doctor and the school’s health center. I’ve seen lots of kids within the relative freedom of boarding school really have disorders develop or get out of control. Also, perhaps through a conversation with her doctor and/or a therapist, you can figure out how to let her know you know. There’s an increasing amount of literature suggesting that parental involvement is the way to address eating disorders in teens and that it’s not, as once thought, a parent-child power struggle that the parent should stand back from. Good luck.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the advice and the PMs–believe me, I want to do something and just didn’t know how to start, but figured the experienced CC gang would know better than me what to do. I understand some schools don’t tolerate this and just send kids home.<br>
While I want to alert the school to what is going on for safety sake, is this something you talk to the health center about, along with dorm parent? I would think if the prefects were told, it would get around pretty fast, which might make for juicy gossip–and what a way to start at a new school when you are already so worried about everything else.
My husband talked to my daughter today and she refused to acknowledge that there was a problem, despite clear evidence. We hoped to talk to her separately so I’m going to talk to her tomorrow. It seems like vomiting your meals would be tough to hide with a shared bathroom at school but I’m sure where there is a will, there is a way. Only a few days till she leaves–it’s a nightmare that this is something we confirmed yesterday. I’m so scared this is going to become a lifetime habit (and a prison for her). Do I tell her I am going to have to talk to the school based on what I know, or do I just keep it between me and the school?</p>
<p>I’m sorry you got that frightening confirmation. I would speak to the health center and have them connect you with a therapist with experience in eating disorders (even if it’s off campus - many (most?) schools have a system for transporting kids to off-campus appointments) and a nutritionist to work with her. It might seem like you’re putting an entire army of people on her, but I think if you know this and she’s not going to be living with you, you have to. I would have the health center guide you on what to tell the dorm parents. In terms of hiding purging in a dorm, in my experience, people will know someone is doing it, but may not know who for quite a while (or there’s more than one!) and therefore it’s hard to pick up and treat.</p>
<p>I will talk to them although I fear her anger toward me at a time when I already feel so sad she is leaving. It’s such a bad note to start off on. I guess the signs were all there–achiever kid ditched her nice, academic friends for a new group last summer. The new kids were very popular and social but not nearly as smart. All constantly talking about how fat they were and what they weighed. Really beyond mean to each other. Some of the girls are promiscuous and very competitive over the same boys. My daughter started chewing gum (not like violet Beauregard but still) and is very upset when she runs out. Presumably to hide the vomit taste, I don’t know. She has become secretive and angry, and looks in the mirror a lot. Her toilet has splashes of food on it when I clean it ( this is more frequent recently). She’s lost weight and now fits into some horrible tiny short shorts from sixth grade and wears them only because of the size tag inside. Her skin was always clear and looks awful now. She has a knuckle scab (very small but it is there). Last night she was on the office computer before going out. I went on it later that evening and an instant conversation popped up on the bottom of the computer which she was apparently having on her phone at the time. It basically was her telling someone that “my dad found out” and how “he was trying to relate to me and I just walked away and it was awkward”. No remorse. So this is how I know and it just is breaking my heart. But I totally appreciate the advice and support. I just wonder how long it has been going on and if she even wants to stop.</p>
<p>She may well not want to stop. Psychologist/therapist types tell me this behavior is very self-rewarding. You are probably going to have to force her into treatment, and probably going to have to take away things she wants (including, possibly, living away from home) if she won’t meaningfully engage in treatment. I’m sorry this is happening, but you’re right to be thinking that her health matters more than any of the rest of it. Also, please take a good, hard look at whatever school she will be attending. If the girls all look like fashion models (and there are some places where it really seems like they are), it may not be an environment in which she can recover. If it’s a more realistic blend of body types, I’d say you’re in better shape. It will not be good for her if at school she finds girls with the same problem and they band together to support each other in this (it happens).</p>
<p>I am so sorry for what your daughter is going through. Bulimic purging is especially insidious, and your daughter needs professional counseling immediately before the diseased thoughts and behaviors become entrenched. I dont live in your shoes, but I would never let my daughter go away to boarding school knowing she was already down the road of bulimic behavior. Boarding schools may not cause eating disorders, but I have also never known one to cure a student either. It is terrifyingly easy for a girl to hide the behavior at boarding school or to get encouragement to continue, and I am speaking as someone who has a high alert out for the warning signs. Almost no year goes by at the boarding school where I teach without some girl needing to leave to get her health back together.</p>
<p>So even though I cant imagine letting a sick child with a very dangerous disease leave a loving home, speaking as a boarding school faculty member, I wouldnt want you to drop her off without getting counseling sessions set up. My school, like many, has a licensed counselor on staff on campus round the clock. Check out the health center. Tell the dorm parent, tell the advisor. Tell her coach. And although I would not inform the hall prefects as a parent, it seems unecessarily cruel to assume the prefects would treat your daughters disease as juicy gossip. Those kids get those jobs for a reason, and if your daughter confides in them, they will likely scoot her over to the health center while being supportive and discreet.</p>
<p>I imagine that you are doing your reasearch and are learning that eating disorders are not really about weight loss. There is something much, much more worrisome going on that is causing your daughter to engage in such extremely risky behavior, not to mention switching friend groups. I do not understand why you would look to sneak to the health center and not tell her, or try to tell her dorm parents on the sly and not talk to your own child directly. Sometimes a kid needs to see just how badly their behavior is frightening and upsetting their parents before it hits them just how dangerous it is. You describe yourself as wanting to avoid her displeasure. If she is starving herself and making herself throw up her food she is already in tremendous pain. Do anything and everything to reverse the course of this as fast as you can, including seriously considering not sending her to a school where she does not have a support system in place. An eating disorder is a serious disease, it is not a diet.</p>
<p>fwiw, the gum is a way to trick the brain into thinking she has eaten. If she is skipping meals and also engaging in purging but is not binge eating, you might want to investigate what is classified as EDNOS by the DSM IV.</p>
<p>Sorry to be so strident. I have been on the front lines of eating disorders with too many valuable young women in my life. I take this stuff deadly seriously.</p>
<p>My heart goes out to you. This is so frightening and sad.</p>
<p>@Stillinschool, that last part is exactly what I fear–Bulimic friends. We had those in my sorority. They were seriously crazy. As for the boarding school, the kids are great looking IMO, but they also seem to have “normal” bodies. A mix. Unfortunately I’m afraid she has become a product of the town we live in now. It is known for skinny and beautiful girls and mommies. Cleanses, laxatives, lipo, botox, eating disorders–it’s all here and kind of standard. I have lived all over the world and this is the most mentally unstable place I can think of. So many families send their kids away to boarding school so they can be away from “all this.” Moving is impossible though–nobody is buying real estate. It’s a beautiful prison.</p>
<p>But the bulimia–I spoke to her today about it. She acknowledged that she has been vomiting about once a day since spring break (so about six months basically, and since deciding to go away to boarding school). We had a very long conversation during which time I asked her if any of her friends are doing it now/why she started/when she started/if this is something she enjoys/what made her start/if she wants to stop etc. I explained to her that we can not let her go away to school if she is planning on being bulimic when she is gone. I told her we HAVE to tell the school and that she needs to stop. I told her about my mom’s college roommate, who starved herself to death, and my maid of honor, whose bulimia was what she referred to as a sickness she couldn’t escape. I told her all of the things that I noticed and knew. She was angry, surprised, sad, somewhat remorseful at times.
She tried to leave when I first mentioned it but I told her she had to talk to me about it and her response was along the lines of “so you can lecture me,” and I had to tell her how much we care about her. I told her about the ladies in town (who she knows) who have stumps under their veneers. The ones basically who have turned themselves into “real housewives.” My daughter wants to excel in everything while being low key. I told her that if she continues this habit at school, everyone will know, and she will be judged on it. It will be what she is known for, more than being smart or athletic or talented, and it’s not a good thing nor will that reputation go away. This seemed to hit home the most. I have a feeling it’s going to be rough going but at least the communication is out there and she knows we know and that we will not allow her to go to boarding school if she is planning to continue this behavior. I just wish we had taken the tuition insurance.
Thanks for all the advice and support in the meantime. I very much appreciate it.
xoKittenygoodness</p>
<p>Thank you also Albion–believe me I am terrified and agree with everything you said. It’s the advice from people who have seen it and more that I need so much right now.</p>
<p>Kittenygoodness - I have no experience in this area at all to offer you and I’m very glad that there are people on this thread who do. I just want to offer you my support as another parent of a girl headed to her first year of boarding school. I admire you for having a very difficult conversation with your daughter and making your concerns and position clear to her. All the best.</p>
<p>I am just so glad you had such a frank discussion with your daughter. I know how hard those conversations can be, but I also agree how important they are.</p>
<p>Let me, too, say good job for putting it on the line with your daughter. You’re absolutely right that if she can’t engage in treatment and work to have healthy eating habits and a balanced attitude toward food and exercise, she can’t be away from home right now. There’s a lot of research that suggests, as Albion says, that these eating disorders change the brain and become much harder to get rid of once established. Good luck. I hope you can find the help she needs and she can be successful, home or away.</p>
<p>Albion, I suggested the “sneaking around,” because from the OP I wasn’t certain if there was an established eating disorder, or a suspected eating disorder. I know if my teenaged daughter thought I were telling the nurses, etc. of a suspected eating disorder (without proof), she would be enraged at me, and the lines of communication would shut down.</p>
<p>@Kittenygoodness, can you get an emergency consultation with a psychiatrist who specializes in eating disorders? Before she leaves for school? Whether she stays or goes, it sounds as if she could find peers in both communities who would share and encourage the eating disorder. If parents send their children away to school to escape the “beautiful prison,” a local psychiatrist could know which choice to recommend. He/she might also know which psychiatrist or therapist to recommend near the BS, should you decide to send her. </p>
<p>If you are concerned about the tuition, perhaps you should speak with your daughter’s new school. Yes, you have signed a contract obligating you to pay tuition. On the other hand, sending a child with a newly discovered eating disorder to boarding school is an exceedingly difficult situation for everyone involved.</p>
<p>My heart goes out to you. The only silver lining may be that you discovered this condition now, rather than years later.</p>
<p>periwinkle, I am a longtime fan of yours. I was just speaking from the vantage of a teacher who wants parents and high school kids to communicate with each other about the life altering stuff. Of course, life is way, way, way more complex than simply advocating for communication, but I do applaud Kitteny for sitting her daughter down and having a hard, brave conversation.</p>
<p>Thank you, Albion. I suspect parents/kid conversation never ends.</p>
<p>Kittenygoodness? Five people have responded to your OP so far. The thread has received 598 unique views. Although I’m sure you’re feeling frightened for your daughter, and probably very alone at this moment, you are not alone. Whatever decision your family makes, having the courage to raise the question in public has helped other children. Perhaps other families are raising difficult questions tonight, only because you dared to speak up.</p>
<p>You are not alone.</p>
<p>This site may be useful: [F.E.A.S.T</a>. Eating Disorder Treatment Support for Anorexia and Bulimia](<a href=“http://www.feast-ed.org%5DF.E.A.S.T”>http://www.feast-ed.org)</p>
<p>This forum may be useful for posting about your situation: [Around</a> the Dinner TableSupport forum for parents and caregivers of anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorder patients](<a href=“http://www.aroundthedinnertable.org%5DAround”>http://www.aroundthedinnertable.org)</p>
<p>You all have been extremely helpful and supportive in this recent nightmare so all I can say is thank you so much to everyone. My husband is absolutely freaking out about this tonight with the leaving day on Monday. I asked my daughter in the car this morning if she threw up yesterday and she said she did not. I want to believe her, but I am still deliberately keeping her as busy as possible and keeping meals as simple as possible: fruit, grilled fish. Nothing that will make her feel like she’s eaten a mountain of food and tempt her to get rid of it, because at this point I don’t know what triggers her actions. Tomorrow I will ask her about today, and also I am putting in a call to her doctor (a pediatrician for young adults) who can hopefully assist us before she goes. If she goes. Time is just not on my side though, and that fills me with anxiety. Her friends have been trickling off to their schools this past week and I know she is sad about her close grade splitting apart for new friendships and new places, despite excitement about her new school. I wonder if this fear of letting go of the familiar is a factor in her behavior, because she has found something she can control. In any case, I am going to try to have a third party professional talk to her before this weekend. Hopefully they can squeeze her in tomorrow or recommend someone who can. I feel like the worst parent though. She is very moody since our conversation and I am having a hard time with it.</p>