Updating the Contract to achieve new goals

The great thing about the anorexia recovery contract is that it can be updated whenever you need to focus on a particular problem area. I always ensure this is seen as a mutual thing and never seen as me, the parent, inflicting 'my will' on Ben. This is how we've agreed to update the contract  - and why...


Yesterday at CAMHS Ben had lost 1.5kg over a fortnight. OK, he's had a tummy bug, so that could be the reason. However it is vital that he gets back to the agreed minimum permitted weight level - and then continue to work on increasing.

This week he also plans to go back to school full-time - his first full days and, hopefully, full week since spring 2009 (apart from some tricky full days back in September 2009).

This will also mean school dinners - and there's always the danger with school dinners that Ben will cut back. In the Bad Old High-Anorexia Days he'd go for salad and fruit, nothing else.

So we need to achieve 3 things: significant weight gain, maintaining full days at school and managing school dinners.

So, for the short term, we have agreed the following update to the anorexia recovery contract:

• Re. the Exercise part of the contract: No 'abnormal' exercise is permitted in school (e.g. running round the grounds, running from lesson to lesson, exercising in the toilets, etc).
• We've doubled the points Ben gets for exceeding his daily calories by 100 or 200.
• 1 extra point for a satisfactory school dinner.

We also plan to update it over the summer holidays so we don't have similar problems to last year when Ben was avoiding social contact.