We eat dinner together at the table every night whether husband is at home or at work we always have done but up until last year we had a tv in our kitchen/dining room. So the reality was we ate in front of the TV because the TV it never got turned off, or there was the plead I just want to see this and it was not always from the kids either. Come meal times the TV was on most often when the husband was at home, when he was back at work the TV wasn’t really an issue I simply turned it off and suffered the momentary whinge. However when the husband was home without fail, it would stay on until one day I got jack of not having a conversation at the table like I did as a kid. So put the TV in another room when he was at work. It has been out of the room ever since.
I like dinner conversation; I like breakfast conversation. I like the jokes my B1 {attempts} to tell, and I like playing I-spied no matter how cryptic and drawn out it is I like the chatter that comes at the table as they all attempt to tell me something about them, their day or something of complete and utter importance like how friend Mr S got on Red Hot at school again and they will neeeeeeevr get on red hot.
I don’t want or like the TV invading our conversation, speaking over the top of me because we may as well sit on the couch and eat separately than together as a family. So since I banished the TV from our dining room our conversations they have returned and it has made a massive difference in our family ‘dynamics’ so I wasn’t surprised when I read the following article..
‘children who eat dinner with their families are less likely to drink, smoke, do drug, get pregnant, commit suicide, and develop eating disorders. Additional research found that children who enjoy family meals have larger vocabularies, better manners, healthier diets, and higher self-esteem. The most comprehensive survey done on this topic, a University of Michigan report that examined how American children spent their time between 1981 and 1997, discovered that the amount of time children spent eating meals at home was the single biggest predictor of better academic achievement and fewer behavioral problems at school. Mealtime was more influential than time spent in school, studying, attending religious services, or playing sports.’
‘Further research sites that in a series of focus groups conducted by the Nutrition Education Network of Washington participants said they believed the primary benefit to eating together was strengthening the family. Allowing for more opportunities to talk and build relationships.’
This also can be seen in an experiment conducted by Oprah Winfrey back in 1993. She then encouraged five families to eat together every night for 30 days by the end of the 30 days all families said they would continue eating together after the experiment was over. The greatest observation was how much the children enjoyed the experiment and looked forward to continuing eating together as a family because it provided a dependable, uninterrupted time to talk with their parents.
Eating together however as a family doesn’t have to be every night modern day schedules often mean that’s impossible. Eating together can be as infrequent as once a week, and it doesn’t have to be dinner. Researchers at Columbia University’s Center on Addiction say having joint meals as infrequently as once a week makes a difference.
What do you think eating together at a meal time does it make a difference to your family? Do you even eat together at all?
xxDeb
{research can be found here image source here}
