Does your family sit down together every night for dinner? Many families are in the habit of parking themselves in front of the TV as they eat dinner. Those families are missing out on a great opportunity to connect with each other. The Family Dinner Project has some excellent advice about why eating dinner together as a family is so important.
The About Page at The Family Dinner Project has an summary of why families really need to have dinner together. It says:
Over the past 15 years, research has shown what parents have known for a long time: Sharing a fun family meal is good for the spirit, brain, and health of all family members. Recent studies link regular family meals with the kinds of behaviors that parents want for their children: higher grade-point averages, resilience and self-esteem. Additionally, family meals are linked to lower rates of substance abuse, teen pregnancy, eating disorders and depression. We also believe in the power of family dinners to nourish ethical thinking.
The Family Dinner Project notes that researchers find that families who eat together five nights a week see benefits for doing so. But, they also point out there is no “magic number” of how often a family needs to do it. Eating in front of the TV can beneficial if a family is actively watching something and commenting about the show. Doing so requires thinking, engaging in conversation, and sharing ideas.
It is important to be “unplugged” while having a family dinner (or other family meal). That means you should avoid passively watching TV, surfing the internet, or staring into the screen of a smartphone or other mobile device while the meal is taking place.
Need some help getting started? The Family Dinner Project has a section that is called “Getting Started”. It can walk you through some ways to get your family eating dinner together and actually having conversations with each other during the meal.
They also have a list of conversations starters that you can use. Their ideas are broken up into questions that are appropriate and interesting for children of different ages. Parents can also ask children to share one new thing that they learned at school today, or to talk about a news article that they read online.
Sharing family stories is also a great way for families to form a bond. Parents can talk about how they first met each other. Most kids are interested in hearing about what their parents did when they were children.
Image by Beverly on Flickr.
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* Why Families Should Eat Dinner Together