Dinner: 30 Minutes to a More Connected Family
"Surrounded
by the people who matter, gazing into the faces we love, we count our
blessings and share our burdens, reliving the daily dramas of missed
buses and skinned knees. We raise jelly glasses and champagne flutes,
toasting 
accomplishments in classrooms and boardrooms. And over
homemade casseroles or haute cuisine, relatives become loved ones and
acquaintances become friends.
The table is where we mark milestones, divulge dreams, bury hatchets, make deals, give thanks, plan vacations, and tell jokes. It’s also where children learn the lessons that families teach: manners, cooperation, communication, self-control, values. Following directions. Sitting still. Taking turns. It’s where we make up and make merry. It’s where we live, between bites." -- Doris Christopher
You’ve probably heard that having dinner together as a family is a good thing for your kids, but you may not realize that it could change your child’s life. Dinner is the best predictor we have of how kids will do in adolescence. The more frequently kids eat dinner with their families, the better they do in school, and the less likely they are to become sexually active, suffer depression, get involved with drugs or alcohol, or consider suicide.
Why? Maybe because families who eat together talk more, which helps them stay connected and build better relationships.
Maybe because parents who show up to eat with their kids are more likely to express their love constructively in other ways, in the form of both attention and supervision.
Maybe because families who offer kids more structure are more likely to keep kids attending to their homework as well as out of trouble.
Maybe because dinner transforms individual family members into a "group," which gives parents more clout to rival the power of the peer group.
Or maybe because children, even more than the rest of us, need something to count on every day, the tangible security of belonging and being nurtured that is represented by the ritual of sharing food with those we love.
Whatever the reason, dinner is a pretty easy insurance policy to build into your homelife. If you’re too busy to have dinner as a family on a regular basis, you may want to re-examine your priorities.
"What's a regular basis?"
Obviously, it's ideal if both parents -- when they live together -- can have dinner with their kids every night. But we don't live in an ideal world, and none of us is an ideal parent. So we do what we can, which can often mean one parent holding down the fort at many weeknight dinners. That gives Friday, Saturday and Sunday a celebratory tone as everyone sits down to savor the meal together.
"I eat with the kids every night, but my husband can't get home till later. Does that matter?"
Sometimes
that's the best a family can do during the week, and you make it work.
But it becomes all the more important that the whole family have time
together on the weekend. There’s something magical for building family
identity for all members of a household to share meals together, at
least some of the time.
"What about kids' sports schedules that keep them away at dinner?"
Once
a week of dinners on the run is inconsequential, but if conflicting
schedules mean your family can't sit down at least a few times during
the week for dinner, it's worth some creative thinking. Can the
schedule be changed so that you all eat earlier or later? Can a child
switch to after-school rather than evening activities? Can you all at
least gather together for dessert before bedtime so that you get some
family time that evening?
"We eat together, but we eat in front of the TV. Does that count?"
Does
it make you feel more connected to your family? Not as much as a
conversation, I suspect, so the short answer is No. Unfortunately,
most American families routinely watch television during dinner,
indicating how challenging it is to make dinner fun and relaxing when
everyone is pressured and tired. It can be a lot easier to turn on the
TV at the end of a long day than to interact with your kids. But
eating in front of the TV builds your relationship with the box, not
with each other.
"I'm so wiped out at the end of the day that I don't have the energy to make dinner into anything special."
After
work schedules, this is the single biggest obstacle to family dinners.
The secret is to minimize the cooking, and to nurture yourself as well
as your kids. This should be a time for everyone in the family to
recharge and reconnect, not just another obligation for you.
We
lose an important opportunity to check in and connect if we lose
dinner, especially if we work away from our kids all day. Dinner seems
so important to me as a foundation for family culture that I would
rather think of it as a cherished family tradition, and skimp somewhere
else, if I have to.
"What about date night?"
While
your kids are young, you may want to sit down with them for Saturday
night dinner before the babysitter arrives and you head out for an
evening with your spouse. Of course, if you have dinner as a family
most of the other nights of the week, this won't feel necessary. And
if you don't, then consider this first part of your Saturday evening
"date night" with your kids.
"As my kids have gotten older, they don't want to have dinner with us on the weekend."
Again,
if you have dinner as a family most other nights, you can feel
comfortable exempting Saturday night as "party night" for everyone.
But if you don't, then your family needs the connection time -- even if
your tweens and teens don't know that!
Naturally, as your kids get
older, they'll be the ones having date night. But if you open your
doors to your kids' friends for dinner, tweens and even teens often
enjoy a delicious free, home-cooked dinner -- and are willing to
engage in an interesting discussion, if you don't embarrass them --
before they head out to a movie or party. That may seem hard to
believe, but my son’s friends have commented that they love hanging out
at our house because the conversations are always so interesting. With
some discussion ideas in mind and a little energy, you can create a
dinner hour that will have the teens almost wishing they didn’t have to head
out.
How do you create a dinner hour that's so nurturing
that everyone in the family -- including you -- looks forward to it? Some
ideas:
1. Pu on your own oxygen mask first.
If you walk in the door from work exhausted and have to rush to get
dinner on the table, you won't have any internal resources left by the
time you sit down. Try putting out healthy snacks (carrots and hummus,
cheese and crackers) as the "first course" while you take ten minutes
to wind down with a glass of wine or a cup of tea. After that, you'll
be more relaxed while you get dinner on the table and sit down with
those people you adore. For more tips, see Surviving Arsenic Hour.
2. Consciously cultivate sacred space.
There’s nothing magical about exhausted parents, cranky kids, and
take-out food. But with minimal effort, we can create a daily, short
but restorative, celebration of family, which offers refuge from the
trials and tribulations of ordinary life. Some families do this by
lighting candles, which seems to set the time apart and make it
special. Some say a short blessing, which may or may not be religious
in nature, but reconnects us with our gratitude for simply being alive
and together.
The most important component, though, is the
attitude of celebration and appreciation. Parents will need to set the
tone by overlooking trivial issues like table manners and whose turn it
is to (fill in the blank), and focusing instead on what really matters.
Which isn’t, by the way, the food.
3. The food is not the point.
I'm considered a health food nut by my family, and not a day goes by
without my urging more vegetables on them. But I try to remember that
the point of sitting down to dinner is to connect with each other, not
what we eat. I rarely knock myself out with an elaborate weeknight
meal when it's just our family eating. There are plenty of easy,
healthy, kid-pleasing options out there, and my advice would be to eat
simple, and save your energy for making the dinner table pleasant,
rather than cooking a meal that leaves you even more exhausted at the
end of a long day.
How simple can you eat? Your call, and my
admiration to the chefs out there, but I rely heavily on spaghetti with
sauce from a jar and salad from a bag (ok, cut up some red pepper and
cucumbers if you must), organic chili from a box (accompanying corn
muffins from a mix always makes this a crowd-pleaser), and frequently
omelettes or scrambled eggs with raw carrots out of the bag. And of
course, there's always pizza and take-out. The point is that decent
nutrition does not require a long prep time, and stressing about the
food sabotages what you really want, which is connection with your
family.
4. Turn off the TV and radio.
Some families resist the temptation to turn on the TV during dinner by
situating the TV where it can’t be seen from the table. Many impose a
rule that no one answers phone calls, even if Mom or Dad gets an
important work call, and turn off cell phones so they can't be heard.
Protect this special time with your family from interruptions. As the U.S. President said recently about dinner with his daughters, the
world will still be there in half an hour, even if you're the President.
5. Establish fun rituals and routines.
Some families take turns choosing appropriate background music or being
in charge of dessert. Some rotate who says the blessing or chooses the
discussion topic. In some families, Tuesday is pizza night and Friday
is family game night or the Jewish Sabbath. It’s the fact that you
always do the same thing that reinforces the ritual aspect, and creates
the feeling that this is home, and family, and regardless of the day’s
difficulties, life is good.
6. Use blessings to create a sense of gratitude and connection.
For some parents, saying grace is a time-honored tradition they
wouldn't think of overlooking; for others it feels foreign and
artificial. "I don't believe in God, so we don't say blessings at
dinner!" I often hear. But blessings are not about God, necessarily.
Blessings are about us: our gratitude that we are able to sit down to a
meal when others are hungry, our appreciation of each other, our
honoring the person who prepared the meal and the bounty of nature that
produced it, our awareness that in this moment we have everything we
truly need. Blessings don't have to be traditional prayers to "God."
Blessings are a way of marking the meal as a sacred time together, a
way of connecting us together in the deliciousness of shared
appreciation. You might try holding hands while each person says one
thing they're thankful for. Meg J. Ryan's book A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles
7. Make the discussion interesting for everyone,
rather than just adults talking about their jobs. Some families rule
job talk off-limits, but I personally think there’s much for kids to
learn by hearing sometimes about their parents’ days as well as their
own. We usually start with a quick check-in round of “So how was
school/work today?,” which often leads us into a topic.
You might explore something that was raised in the check-in (“Alice said she has to choose her Science Fair Project. What are you considering?”)
or talk about an upcoming family decision, such as what to do during
the school spring break. Ask kids their opinions on the issues of the
day, or ask them for input on a decision you have to make. Pose ethical
problems that don’t have easy answers and let different family members
tell how they would approach them and why. Share a poem you stumbled
onto today. Jokes can be fun, but be careful, because kids' humor can easily degenerate into a dinner you won't enjoy.
8. But what do we talk about? Write
possible agenda items on index cards and put them in a kitchen drawer, so if you're just too tired to
think some evenings you can still have a rewarding and re-energizing
discussion by just pulling out a topic. Some ideas:
• Name five reasons you’re glad to be alive.
• If we could go anywhere we wanted on vacation where would you choose, and why?
• Tell each person in the family why you’re glad they’re part of the family.
• If I could have a conversation with anyone in history, it would be _____, and I would want to ask ______.
• What is your biggest fear?
• What would you do if all the other kids were planning to cheat on the
final and you knew that not doing so would lower your grade? How
common do you think cheating is at your school?
• What’s the best thing about our family?
• What do you think are the most important qualities of a good parent?
• What do you think makes a happy family?
• What do you think makes a person popular? Are wealthier kids more
popular? Kids who mature faster? Are you popular? Why or why not?
Would you like to be?
Click here for more irresistible questions to ask your kids to get great family discussions started.
9. Make sure everyone participates.
Families who have already created a culture of discussion will have an
easier time with this than those who introduce it to older kids, but
don't give up. Kids who don't speak up can often be coaxed to talk by
asking them specific questions about their interests. "What makes rap
music special to you?" will be more effective than "How was school
today?"
Closed-mouth teens whose families haven't made a habit
of dinner table conversation may take special wooing. Be prepared for
some wise-cracking ("The most interesting thing about me is how corny my family can be!")
and keep your sense of humor, and your teen will probably engage on his
or her own terms. Facilitating a positive discussion can be a
challenge for parents, but is infinitely worth it for the communication
and closeness it fosters in your family.
10. Listen. Middle School Teacher Michelle Trujillo, in her book Why Can't We Talk?: What Teens Would Share if Parents Would Listen,
says that tweens and teens want desperately to talk to their parents
about things that are worrying them, but parents don't listen.
Don’t
offer advice unless asked, and your kids will be more willing to bring
up what’s bothering them. Kids often gain insight into solutions just
by talking. Your kids won't always say things in ways that are easy
for you to hear, but try to see it from their perspective. Bite your
tongue or cover your mouth (literally, if you're like me) if you need
to, so that you don't interrupt, and hear them out. Breathe deeply so
you stay calm. If a topic feels inappropriate for the dinner table,
thank the person who brought it up, and ask if you can talk about it
more after dinner, privately. And just keep reminding yourself how
lucky you are to have kids who are willing to talk with you, and
breathe deep!
11. Protect the dinner table as a nurturing, happy, safe space.
Defer unpleasant topics. Kids who begin to squabble can be asked to
come up with ten things they really love about the sibling with whom they’re
fighting. Adults who start to complain about their day can be
fined a dollar toward ice cream cones on Sunday evening. If you've
tolerated a family culture where teasing is allowed -- which seems to
be the norm among many families with teenage boys -- proclaim the
dinner table a safe space exempt from comments that hurt another's
feelings. (You might also want to re-examine the role of teasing in
your household culture to make sure it's benign, click here for more info on creating a nurturing and safe emotional space for your kids.) The key is cheerful,
relaxed, and kind parental leadership so that everyone's contribution
is valued and no one feels criticized.
12. Agree on which nights you will all eat together and make it a big deal to miss those nights.
Most families can’t eat together every night. Sometimes an adult is out
of town, or a child has a school event. Some parents try to keep one
night as date night to keep their bond with each other fresh, and many families
routinely socialize on Saturday nights or have Sunday dinner with
extended family. But you can create the expectation that on certain
nights, everyone comes home for dinner. Start small, if you need to,
with one or two nights a week. Even those limited by a long commute or
odd hours can often manage a night or two, and those nights become
extra-special for everyone.
13. Play with your food.
Or at least play with your family while you’re eating your food.
Creating a sense of fun and play at the dinner table is the single best
way to make everyone look forward to that time together, and sets a
wonderful tone in your house. Laughter really is the best medicine
after a grueling day.
How? Impersonate each other. Talk in
rhyme. Guess what each person’s mashed potato sculpture is. Make every
comment refer to food (“I’m fried.” “Guess your day wasn’t a bowl of cherries?”) Have a joke contest, where everyone is required to bring a joke to the table, which once a week you add to your family jokebook.
14. Work toward having everyone help get the dinner onto the table.
Once the kids get used to the idea, the group effort can be fun, and of
course it's a great learning experience for them. Most important, it
changes the dynamic of one adult (usually the woman) serving everyone
else. Teenagers, especially, often enjoy the power of deciding what the
family eats one night a week; learning to cook is good practice for
when they go solo. Obviously, this won't happen every night, and busy
weeknights are the hardest, but you might want to talk as a family
about whether everyone could help get dinner on the table one night a
week to start. And you can start small, with everyone gathering to set
the table together and get the food onto the table. In many families
where only one person takes responsibility for cooking, that person is
exempt from clearing and clean-up.
15. Celebrate whenever possible.
Make a big deal out of birthdays, accomplishments of any kind, seasonal
changes, famous people’s birthdays (what a great opportunity to talk
about why you admire Ghandi, or Harriet Tubman!) There’s always
something to celebrate. Just making it through each day intact as a
family is worth celebrating!
Recommended Resources:
Famous people’s birthdates to celebrateDine without Whine - Video Inspiration -- if you still need it -- to celebrate dinner with your family
