November ARFID Parent Support Group

We welcome parents of youth 10 to 20 with Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) to our virtual support group.

Parenting a young person with ARFID is challenging. Feeding a child or teen or young adult with ARFID is extremely challenging. Meals may feel like a constant struggle. You have likely been given conflicting advice about whether to cater to their food preferences or not. Also, you may feel like you’re running ragged searching for their preferred brand of yogurt or chicken nuggets or having to bring home the exact right fast food every night. You may have run out of ideas for what food to serve them. They may be eating the same eight foods over and over again and the list of foods they are willing to eat only seems to get smaller over time. You feel worried about their health and you know they are not getting enough nutrition.

We have been supporting parents in supporting their teens with ARFID. Our work is rooted in Family-Based Treatment for child and teen eating disorders and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for ARFID. In our work with families of teens with ARFID, we see how hard it is to parent and feed and support recovery. This is why we have created a monthly support group for parents of teens with ARFID.

This monthly group is led by Lauren Muhlheim, Psy.D., CEDS-S over zoom. We will provide psychoeducation about ARFID, the different types of ARFID, how it may develop, maintaining factors, and recovery strategies. Parents will be able to share struggles and successes.