Fellow parents, you know how crazy kids’ schedules can be these days. School, sports, clubs, plans with friends, plans with family. It’s a lot, and you still need to find the time to feed your little humans. Along the way, I think most parents would agree, you come across a whole lot of advice (often unsolicited), ideas, and general thoughts on how to raise your kids right. Much of it can go in one ear and out the other as you hustle to keep up with the aforementioned schedules, but every so often, something sticks. For me, the idea that sharing meals together is important was one of those that stuck.
The research backs it up with legitimate outlets such as Johns Hopkins Medicine, pointing to better nutrition and smarter eating for life as a result of sitting down together for meals regularly. Or Harvard Graduate School of Education suggesting that this approach to eating improves mental health and academic performance. I’m no scientist, but I can tell you that eating together as a family has been hugely positive with our three kiddos.
For one thing, it’s a chance to unplug from the relentlessly connected days that are modern life. Phones get left elsewhere. TV does not get turned on (well, most of the time), and we all sit around to politely eat our meals. That last part isn’t quite accurate. I generally inhale my food in 30 seconds, while my wife and I both attempt to help our kids avoid being seen as Cro-Magnons while eating outside the house.
The point is, this effort to eat meals together as a family — and it definitely requires concerted parental effort — leads to all kinds of conversations you might otherwise struggle to have while running to and fro on the daily. At our table, the kids verbally push and shove one another to share why their day was more interesting than their sibling’s. Surely, someone at Harvard could paint the developmental impacts of such behavior in wonderfully scientific strokes. But in my mind, it simply helps strengthen the ability to interact with their fellow humans.
For breakfast during the week, it’s just the three kids together. Usually, they’re reading books, but it’s not unusual to overhear what some might call friendly debate and parents would call bickering. Builds character, I would say. For weeknight dinners, the aim is for all five of us to sit down.
And I can also tell you from long experience, the idea that eating meals together creates positive nutrition habits is absolutely correct. When they were little — today the twins are 13 and my eldest is 14 — we grabbed one of those tidbits of advice that was, in this case, solicited from our pediatrician. He suggested using the “No thank you bite” as a way to encourage the little wingnuts to eat more than french fries and chicken fingers.
We implemented this rule, which meant the kids had to take at least one bite of whatever we were eating. They could say no thank you if it wasn’t their jam, but it got the ball rolling. Today, and this is the I-swear-on-my-loved-ones-grave truth, our kids like vegetables. All of them, not just carrots dipped in ranch. They literally request salad.
Creating the environment to have sit-down meals as a family is absolutely challenging. But between the laughs, the social development, and the healthy eating habits that come with it, I’d argue that it’s absolutely worth making the effort.
