Tidbits on Raising Children: Making Our Most Important Job Easier by Doing It Better

The Family Dinner Table

Who should read this chapter? All parents.

Summary: The family dinner table is a basic tradition that is being lost due to fast food restaurants, busy schedules and independent priorities of family members. This is unfortunate since the simple family dinner brings everyone together in a relaxed atmosphere that promotes family unity and communication. Families who communicate well together, are more likely to communicate well during more stressful periods. Conversation around the family dinner table is a simple way to weave the lives of all family members together to promote communication and unity. Teenagers (who typically do not communicate well with parents) are more likely to communicate well with parents if the foundations for good family communication were established during their younger years. Turn off the TV and put away the newspaper during the family dinner so that the family can focus on family matters. Encourage conversation and be a good LISTENER.

Eating dinner together as a family is an old tradition. Fast food restaurants, busy career schedules, and a greater emphasis on extracurricular activities have broken up the family dinner. The family dinner is given only minor attention, but this is a big mistake. The family dinner is a VERY important part of sharing family values and promoting family unity. MORE attention should be devoted to ensuring family dinners together (at home).

Eating together at the family dinner table permits the intimate interchange of everyone's lives, weaving the family bonds together. How did your day go? How was school? How was your day at work? This promotes communication between family members. The family that communicates well together when their children are young is more likely to continue good communication when their children become teenagers.

At the family dinner table, parents must guide the discussion with skill. Family communication is not facilitated if one person dominates the discussion and does not give others time to talk. For example, if dad dislikes his boss and all he does is grumble about work during dinner, this negative tone inhibits other family members from talking. Parents must realize this and must prevent dinner from being a negative experience. The discussion should be largely positive. Parents should encourage their children to contribute to the discussion. Use open questions such as, 'How was your day at school?' or 'Are you doing anything interesting in school?' Some children need specific questions to get going, such as, 'Who is your best friend at school?', 'Why is he/she your best friend?', 'What is your favorite subject in school?', are all designed to get a conversation going. Be a good listener and praise them for the positive things that are brought up.

During dinner, the TV should be OFF and all reading material (such as newspapers) should be put away. If someone is reading the newspaper, that one person (often dad) will not be listening well. Good family communication requires good listeners to facilitate a good conversation. If everyone is watching TV, the attention will focus on the TV and not on communication. Since there a great tendency to turn on the TV, arrange your dining table and TV such that the TV cannot be viewed from the dinner table. This will make it difficult to watch TV during dinner.

Once the family dinner table establishes itself as a friendly time for conversation, parents can insert discussions on 'parenting topics' into the dinner table conversation. These topics include, drug abuse, smoking, drinking, fighting, academics, college, careers, peer pressure, dating relationships, parenting, sports, etc.

As children grow to become teenagers, communication becomes a greater challenge. Teenagers generally prefer to distance themselves from their parents. Good communication during the younger years minimizes the risk of non-communication during the teenage years. If the family dinner discussions during childhood have been well established, parents can use this to better maintain communication during the teen years. While teens will have activities that will often take place during dinner, special occasions should focus on having special meals together. Inviting your teen to a dinner or lunch just to talk about things, can be very useful. This can be one on one. Teens will be more likely to reject this if good family dinner table communication was not established during their younger years. If good dinner family communication was established in childhood, teens will be more likely to accommodate special lunches and dinners with their parents, in their 'busy' teen schedules. As usual, the discussion at these meals should begin with open ended questions. Subtle guidance to point your teens in the right direction should be the goal. Most importantly, they should get the message that you really care about them. This message should be repeated in subtle ways. Indicate that you are proud of them, as they would be if they were your parent. Just the fact that you took the time to arrange a special lunch or dinner with them indicates that you care.