Two New Jersey parents are facing a lawsuit following their “tough love” approach to disciplining their 18-year old daughter.

Perhaps “Judge Judy” would be the best one to hear the case.

A Morris Catholic High School honor student and athlete who claims her parents threw her out of their Lincoln Park home when she turned 18 has taken the highly unusual step of suing them for immediate financial support and to force them to pay for her college education.

Private high school senior Rachel Canning, a cheerleader and lacrosse player who has aspirations to be a biomedical engineer, filed a lawsuit last week in the Family Part of state Superior Court in Morristown that seeks a judge’s declaration that she is nonemancipated and dependent as a student on her parents for support.

Judge Peter Bogaard, sitting in Morristown, has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday. Rachel Canning’s lawyer, Tanya N. Helfand, will ask that parents Sean and Elizabeth Canning, who haven’t paid an outstanding $5,306 Morris Catholic tuition bill, be ordered to settle that debt, pay Rachel’s current living and transportation expenses, and commit an existing college fund to their daughter, who has received acceptance letters from several universities and has to make a decision this spring.

Since the alleged “abandonment” by her parents, Rachel has been living in Rockaway Township with the family of her best friend and fellow student Jaime Inglesino, whose father is attorney and former Morris County Freeholder John Inglesino. Inglesino is funding the lawsuit and hired attorney Helfand, who included in the lawsuit a request that the parents pay their daughter’s legal fees that so far total $12,597.

Sean Canning, a retired Lincoln Park police chief who currently works as Mount Olive’s township administrator, said his daughter’s representation of the facts is not accurate and he fears she is being “enabled” by well-intentioned but ill-informed people who include the Inglesinos. Sean Canning said that Rachel voluntarily left home in October and was never thrown out.