ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the essential role of parents and primary caregivers in treating pediatric gastrointestinal (GI) conditions and describes how GI mental health professionals can partner with caregivers to promote youth's adherence, adaptive coping, and daily functioning. It describes general principles for engaging caregivers as partners in care across three aspects of GI condition management (adherence, coping, daily functioning) based on youth's developmental stage. For example, GI mental health professionals working with caregivers of school-aged children with celiac disease may offer gluten-free diet education, recommend caregiver adherence monitoring paired with a token economy for children, offer family-based problem-solving skills training focused on social eating situations, or connect caregivers to support groups. GI mental health professionals should provide psychoeducation to help caregivers understand the rationale for a focus on daily functioning despite GI symptoms, as well as caregivers critical roles in supporting children to participate in daily activities and graded engagement/exposure.
