The average parent spends 38.5 minutes per week in meaningful conversation with their children. (A.C. Nielsen Co.)

Family dinners are more important than play, story time and other family events in the development of vocabulary of younger children. (Harvard Research, 1996)

Frequent family meals are associated with a lower risk of smoking, drinking and using drugs; with a lower incidence of depressive symptoms and suicidal thoughts; and with better grades in 11 to 18 year olds. (Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 2004)

Adolescent girls who have frequent family meals, and a positive atmosphere during those meals, are less likely to have eating disorders. (University of Minnesota, 2004)

Kids who eat most often with their parents are 40% more likely to say they get mainly A’s and B’s in school than kids who have two or fewer family dinners a week. (National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University)

Martha Farrell Erickson from the Children, Youth and Family Consortium at the University of Minnesota offers the following tips:

Make dinner a special family time. Turn off the TV, take the phone off the hook, dim the lights, light candles, and have a relaxing time together. Or, if you prefer, engage young children in a creative theme dinner like a picnic on the living room floor. Use your imagination and choose the approach that suits your family best.

Focus on positives. Don’t use mealtime as a time to criticize, complain, or argue. Treat each other with respect and affection. Let the little things ride; who cares if junior is wiggly at the table or little sis dribbles milk? Save the discussions of homework and messy bedrooms for another time.

Decide together how you can make high-quality family time a habit. Are there one or two days a week that you all can commit to for a fun family dinner? What do you need to clear from your schedule to make that happen? And when dinnertime doesn’t work, how about a snack and a family boardgame at bedtime?

I think my sister got this style from my mom. While other moms would have cringed when they heard us talk when we were teenagers, my mom took in a stride. She wasn’t liberated; she just knew when it was time to intervene. She would listen calmly and patiently at the dinner table even when all of us would be in the verge of a huge quarrel sometimes over a petty issue. She didn’t snap or cut the argument; we knew instinctively when to stop.

We can’t help but reiterate the importance of being together in mealtimes. We strongly encourage families to eat even just one meal together. We don’t need to cite studies to prove this; one only needs to observe their own neighborhood to see the difference. But what about respect? Sometimes, the reason why children find it awkward to eat with their parents is because (aside from infrequency) they don’t feel free to express their thoughts. Just like the varied nationalities my sister taught, children have their own personalities, interests, and experiences unique to them coming from factors such as age, peers and environment. Parents sometimes have the tendency to stop them from talking out loud. While this might be carried out in good intentions, just remember that children have minds of their own and can think for themselves. So at the dinner table, welcome conversations (no matter how trivial it may sometime seem to you) as a refreshing change and reward manners with a smile. Remember that respect isn’t just handed out to people your age, sometimes your children are the ones who need it the most.

“The number of those who report that their “whole family usually eats dinner together” has declined 33 percent. This is most concerning because the time a family spends together “eating meals at home [is] the strongest predictor of children’s academic achievement and psychological adjustment.” Family mealtimes have also been shown to be a strong bulwark against children’s smoking, drinking, or using drugs. There is inspired wisdom in this advice to parents: what your children really want for dinner is you.”I can’t resist quoting this from Good, Better and Best.

Going back to my friend’s story, she now has a family of her own and there are scars but she has been healed. She has 3 kids and a loving husband. They’ve had their share of rough times of course. One nearly threatened their marriage. There wasn’t someone else. It was because they had no time for each other. My friend was working, her husband was working, and the kids were suffering. Their grades were low, they went home late, they were withdrawn and often had shouting matches with each other and even with their parents. My friend and her husband began pointing fingers and blaming each other for their kids’ behavior. Then, she read about a study on the importance of mealtimes for family togetherness. And at that time, her friend was persuading her to join a dinner group. She didn’t hesitate and decided to join despite her busy schedule. The rest, they say, is history. It wasn’t an overnight change of course, but things picked up from there and she is very thankful for having a dinner group. But the most important thing she learned was to arrange her time around her family and not the other way around. And of course, let me quote it again “What your children really want for dinner is you.”

For this night, even just for tonight, please give it a try, please give it time. Eat with your children. Talk to them about the day’s affairs; your day and theirs. Take it slow. Smile at their experiences, congratulate them on their triumphs and laugh at their funny stories. Even just for one night. You might find yourself wanting to do it every night. And for those who are worrying (or are panicky) what to do or talk about, I know you’ll love this article on mealtime activities. As for me, I have to arrange dinner with my mom. I miss her cooking.

“Why are you asking? Go do something else. I’m busy,” the dad replied, barely taking his eyes from the book he was reading.

But his son was persistent and he kept on asking the father. Exasperated, he told his son, “I earn $30. Now, do something else and stop bothering me.”

But the son looked at him pleadingly and said, “Can I have $30?”

The father got angry. “So that ‘s the reason why you’re asking? No, you cannot have $30 and I want you to go to your room!”

His son was sobbing as he ran to his room. Later that night, the father felt guilty so he put $30 on his son’s table. Early the next day, his son went to him and placed $30 in his hand.

“Now, can  I have one hour of your time?”

I’ve always liked this story. It’s a reminder for me to stop, think and reflect how I treat my family. Am I spending time with them or spending money so they can go bother someone else? This reminds me again and again of what the order of my priorities should be. When I went to the mall last Sunday, I saw a bunch of kids sitting in the corner, with their deft hands twiddling the minute buttons of their portable gaming gadgets, watching the game through equally minute screens while their moms were shopping elsewhere. I have nothing against those gadgets but I do believe that human contact can never be replaced.

This doesn’t just happen in malls of course. As in the story above, it more often than not happens inside our houses. We tend to get so busy preparing for this and that, that we treat our children as disturbances to our routine. This is a challenge to us parents. Mornings are the busiest times of the day, we don’t see each other at lunch, so that only makes dinner the only time we can actually spend with our family. And as we have mentioned in other articles, eating meals together is very, very important to the values formation, harmonious relations, and general well-being of your family. Don’t put it off one more day. You have to take the steps to change (if you haven’t done it already) now.

Carson is very happy about how joining a dinner group transformed their lives. He can’t even believe it sometimes. But he only has to look at his children’s happier faces, better report cards and his wife’s contentment to believe the change that has happened. It has done a tremendous work in his family by encouraging spontaneous communication, a closer relationship and a respect for authority for his children and even for him.

Back at home there was a large table groaning with choicest food. Our dinner group had decided to hold a New Year celebration together. We assigned different meals and even had a small exchange of gifts. It was a fun night. It was a wonderful way to start the year with people who had been like family to us. We had been swapping dinner for about 8 months already and we were very happy with the way things were going. We had a strong and open relationship with our children. Our husbands were loving the home-cooked meals every night. But as we toasted to more years to come for our dinner group the scene I saw on the street stuck in my mind.

When we met for the first time that year, I told them about the thought that was bugging me. That was when the idea of serving soup in the local welfare headquarters started. We decided to volunteer once a month, serving soup. We lugged big pots and pans to a makeshift server and served soup to our impoverished neighbors. This has been a monthly tradition for us since then. This has been our way of sharing what we have to those who have less. My dinner group has served a big role for this cause. It is also a realization for me that we should broaden our spectrum of the concept of a family. For me, it includes not just my husband, my children, and my friends, it also includes the people I come in contact with whom I can share what I have.

1. Quantity time is quality time. The more time we spend with our children, the more they become close to us. Therefore, eating together with them is time well spent.
2. Open lines of communication. When we’re closer to our kids, they’re bound to be more expressive of their emotions and feelings and would less likely be rebellious than kids who are not close to their parents.
3. Promotes healthy relationships. Parents learn to respect their children’s opinions and needs and children learn to respect the authority of their parents and understand them better when they spend more time around the dining table. It also encourages respect for diversity of personalities, experiences and ages.
4. Hones their social skills. Instead of watching TV or twiddling with their PSPs for dinner, conversations would be encouraged, free expression tolerated and human contact established when eating together thus they would be able to socialize with people even on a larger scale.

These are some of the reasons why we encourage eating together to strengthen the familial bonds. There are other ways to develop the abovementioned reasons, but I think you’ll all agree with me that one of the easiest ways is to eating together during mealtimes.

Eating together can renew the bonds that were weakened with time. It may involve a change in your schedule, it may involve some awkwardness at the start (and possibly some sulky faces) but as you get used to it and have it as a part of your schedule, you can be sure that the small sacrifices, at the beginning, are worth it. You can also check out this article on dinnertime as the perfect time for togetherness.