Guest Post: The Dinner Table- On the Endangered List

Please welcome our Guest Post from local mom Liz Anderson. “For the past year I have felt lead and encouraged by family and friends to start a blog. I am just an ordinary lady like you with an abundance of ideas, encouragement and hard earned savvy (wisdom) to share.” Liz Andersen www.Sassy2savvy.com

The Dinner Table: On the Endangered List

Families today are so busy; homework and after school activities often dominate the schedule. Occasionally throw in an orthodontic appointment or a piano lesson and the family calendar can quickly become overloaded.

Many of us have been conditioned to handle a tight schedule, but something usually ends up falling to the way side. With the demand of a busy schedule, meals eaten together as a family is often what gets left out. This is not to say that our kids are eating badly, or that we as Moms are not meeting the needs of our children’s diets, this just refers to the way we spend our time eating.

The dinner table has been on the endangered list for quite sometime. Will our children know the value of eating as a family ten, twenty, even thirty years from now? Many of us can remember shows like Leave It to Beaver, where family meals happened around the dinner table at least two times a day. The kids would come down to a well-prepared breakfast and Dad would be sitting there with his newspaper, Mom (Mrs. Cleaver) would be filling the juice glasses, and the boys sat down as if they had all the time in the world. The air was filled with laughter and conversation.

I know that television is just television and many of the things we watch are not realistic. However, just as the Cleaver family sat around the dinner table, so did many American families of that era. Dinner time around the table was a priority over most activities.

Let me be real with you for a second. In my house we do not eat around the dinner table every night. This is due to a schedule of soccer, church, and other various activities. We do, however, make sure to sit down around the table, with everyone present, at least three times a week. Three out of seven is not horribly bad, and I would say a good start. I know many families out there that have never eaten a meal at their kitchen table. This is in no way a judgment- they are all pretty amazing families, however I believe there are valuable lessons our children learn as they sit around the table at dinner time.

What happens at a dinner table when you sit down to eat? Great conversations can be had over a meal. Asking your child about his/her day not only shows them you are taking an interest in their day to day activities but it is also requiring your child to open up and talk to you. I personally try and ask questions that require more then a yes or no answer. My children need to make eye contact and speak, which helps them build very important communication skills. Many of our kids today have a hard time making eye contact or feeling comfortable enough to carry on a conversation with an adult. I find many of the kids I run into will speak to the ground or look in an entirely different direction while carrying on a conversation. Communication skills are taught and then developed from practice.

The value of family is also a great lesson to learn over the dinner table. In a country where the divorce rate is high and still climbing, the value of the family unit can be over shadowed. Not every family will look the same or have the same makeup but teaching the value of family unity is important no matter what your family dynamic. The dinner table can be a fun, safe place where everyone can eat and share in time together. I believe that dinner time should be a positive experience and not used for lectures or fighting. Keep it upbeat and the family will keep coming back. At the dinner table young children learn to develop a longer attention span. Keeping them involved in conversation helps keep their attention. Every time my family and I sit at the dinner table we play a game known as the “Hooray of the day, and the doom/gloom of the day.” This gets everyone talking.

I think that we can save the “dinner table,” if we can see the importance it holds for the entire family but most of all for our children’s development. I know I will only have my kids for a short time. Before I know it they will be grown and on their own, so making a lasting impression at dinner is important to me. We have made many memories at our dinner table and I believe my kids will grow up knowing its importance.

I would love you to share your comments or stories of what your dinner traditions may be.

**A great study, www.cfs.purdue.edu/CFF/promotingfamilymeals, was done on the impact of family meals and how it relates to educational success in kids. It also discusses how family meals can decrease the chance of kids being affected by peer pressures like; smoking, drinking, and drugs.

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