Current research shows us that having a shared Family Mealtime has huge benefits for marriages and families. A recent Cornell University Report tells us that families who share meals together, at least 3 meals per week, will:
- Have improved psychological well-being
- Increase academic achievement
- Establish healthy communication
- Significantly decrease the risk for eating disorders or becoming overweight
- Create “space/margin” from a hectic day
- Build healthy relationships among all family members
- Develop feelings of closeness and comfort
Ever since Shelly began researching and presenting this material several years ago at a MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) meeting, we have made it a goal to be characterized as a family who eats together. As a result, it has improved our marriage and our family life. And all of this is in spite of the fact that our lives are hectic and nuts just like everyone else’s. With Rich’s work travel and schedule, Shelly’s daily commitments and our boy’s relentless activities, we found ourselves in a frequent grab and go mode where we were accommodating the hecticness and not our familiness. All this changed when we intentionally decided to be characterized by having a shared family mealtime.
Was it easy to establish after years of habits (e.g., fast food lovers, fixing a separate dinner for the kids and then eating our meal after they had eaten, eating in front of the TV on occasion) we were not proud of? Nope. Has every shared family meal been great and utopian? Definitely not! But over time, the good has significantly outweighed the bad.
Here are some ideas to help you to either get started or rejuvenated with your own family meal- time. We have successfully used and reused many of these time and time again!
1) Establish a welcoming environment – Make it a time of non-conflict so that everyone, especially mom and dad, feels comfortable to share their thoughts, ideas and feelings. What does it mean to be a good and/or active listener? Do Mom and Dad need to guard their tongue and tone, especially after a hard or challenging day?
2) Establish realistic expectations – Shoot for consistency not perfection. Perfection will NEVER happen. Maybe start with 2 shared mealtimes a week with the goal to have 5 shared dinners and maybe a couple of lunches and breakfasts. Know that every mealtime will not go ideally. Maybe your 2 year old decides that today is the day they will launch all their food everywhere. Or your teenager decides that their teacher is “terrible” and will, therefore, not talk at dinner because their weekend has been destroyed. All of that is fine (of course you are working on those issues) and bad days and bad mealtimes will happen. Just remember to move on and know that if you are consistent, the good mealtimes will far exceed the less than ideal ones.
3) Establish family mealtime rules – No toys, games, cell phones at the table. No interrupting or speaking over someone. No talking with your mouthful. Choose to express yourself with positive words. Choose to gain understanding before commenting or expressing an opinion.
4) Make it fun – Talk about your favorite family traditions and establish some new ones or talk about and plan a family trip. Below shows our Dinner Conversations Cards. We take turns randomly selecting a card for discussion. Some cards have bible verses we discuss, some have quotes similar to our OneFamily daily email quotes we discuss, and some have provoking questions to answer. For Example, Name each family member’s best quality. Who would you like to have dinner with and why? Who’s your favorite fictional character and why?
Dinner Conversation Cards
5) Watch out for traps and buzzkills – Little mini lectures and sermons can be appropriate for some mealtimes, but they need to be used rarely (see #4 above!). When the audience is captive, it can be a huge temptation to go off on a soliloquy or monologue. Just be aware that the “brilliant wisdom” you are about to share could be a major buzzkill to the mealtime mood and fall on deaf ears as a result.
As we have mentioned in previous letters, our family mealtime was instrumental in dealing with many things: behavioral issues, seeking forgiveness from a wronged family member, showing the proper manners and how to communicate properly. We’ve also had many meaningful and candid discussions about sex, drugs, peer pressure, politics, theology and relationship dynamics. The end result of this is that we have all grown individually and together in the process… building the Howard community!
If these types of topics and discussions encourage you and motivate you in your personal growth, your marriage and parenting, please consider registering for our upcoming class or contact us to help your small group or neighborhood community get started!
Parenting from the Tree of Life (link!)
Cherry Hills Community Church
Starts January 10, 2018!
The truth and wisdom shared in this class has been instrumental and transformational for us, the Marrs, and countless other families throughout the world!
BTW – We promise this will be the last plug for this class!
Blessings to your family,
Shelly and Rich