Family Dinner

Family Dinner Definition: sitting down at your dinner table as a family, eating a meal together. (Dinner in front of the TV does NOT count!)

This is one of the most important ways you can bring your family together every day – maybe the only time of day you will actually look directly at and talk to each other.

It can be a time to strengthen relationships and get to know each other better.

Family dinner holds a special place in my heart. It hasn’t always. Its onset was probably when I became a mother. I wanted my children to have dinner every night, just like my mom made for me.

But as my family has grown, the benefits of family dinner have become so much clearer to me.

Seriously though, my patience level, by the time dinner hits the table, is usually VERY low (especially if my baby has been hanging on my leg while I’ve been trying to cook said dinner).

So, my husband and I try to hush the silly, obnoxious and loud, and channel the conversation towards more enlightening and constructive topics.

We like to go around the table asking each kid, “What was the best part and worst part of your day?”

The first time we did this, I was shocked at their responses. Not because they were so off-the-wall, but because I just assumed this was the kind of stuff they’d tell me anyway.

For example, during one dinner conversation I learned that one of my sons had been bullied at school!

Another time I learned he had had his first home run in kickball that day!

It’s been fun and interesting to see the day through their eyes – even my 3-year-old, whom I’ve spent the entire day with.

The lesson to me: If you don’t ask, they don’t always tell.

If not at family dinner, I don’t know when this stuff would come out. It’s certainly not included in the answer I get when I ask, “How was school?” All I get then is a, “good.”

You MUST watch this video. It’s presented by www.dinewithoutwhine.com.

- Family dinners are more important than play, story time and other family events in the development of vocabulary of younger children. (Harvard Research, 1996)

- Frequent family meals are associated with a lower risk of smoking, drinking and using marijuana; with a lower incidence of depressive symptoms and suicidal thoughts; and with better grades in 11 to 18 year olds. (Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 2004.).

Shocking, isn’t it? Something so simple (OK, not always simple) can have such far reaching affects.

I have to dedicate this page and my strong belief in the value of family dinner to both my Mom and Grandma.

Mom always, ALWAYS had dinner on the table. I didn’t fully appreciate the food or the value of the family time back then. But thinking of it now, with the time and sacrifice that came with those meals, nearly brings me to tears.

Why? Because everything about that mundane task, day, after day, after day, spells L-O-V-E in a way that nothing else can.

And to Grandma…

She has, once every month for as long as I can remember, made Sunday dinner for her family. This family includes her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren living nearby and consists of about 38 people!

I don’t know if I would try to accomplish such a feat now, let alone when I get into my 80’s!!

But it’s more than just dinner (which, by the way is always beyond delicious). It brings our extended family together in a way that there can never be hard feelings or fights or rifts between anyone.

Because you’re going to have to face the WHOLE family come Sunday dinner!

Does Grandma just really like to cook that much? I don’t think so!!

What a wonderful example she is to me of taking care of your family and the power of family dinner.

Have family dinner each night. I challenge you! Try it for a week and see if it makes any difference at all in your family.