This is a plea to bring back this tradition in your family.
Starting with nutrition and health, the family dinner provides a time to cook healthy foods for everyone. For one meal of the day you can be assured that everyone eats something good for them. This is getting easier as we have a movement toward healthy organic foods. For many people, dinner is the only time to get a vegetable and salad in their diet. Just keeping this habit going can add years to your lives.
For the families’ mental well-being, dinner provides a time for face-to-face conversation. Yes, this can mean conflict but the dinner table provides a forum to work things out. If you have to sit at the same table with people night after night there is strong motivation to settle spats and not hold grudges.
A recent study showed that top scholars had one thing in common – their families ate dinner together. By eating together we converse with each other. We debate, argue, laugh and cry together. Providing children with this forum prepares them for school and the world. Children gain further achievement when they come from households that value family dinners.
They won’t always be perfect. Yes, you will argue. There will be good times and bad around the table. Some meals will be gobbled up. Some won’t be touched. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is the value of the family dinner over time. The lessons learned at the table will be valued by your children – especially as they go off to work, study and achieve in the real world. Family dinners – don’t let them leave home without one.