Most families today lead very hectic lives.
Hence, getting the family together for a family meal is very challenging for the typical contemporary family these days.
Mom’s and dad’s demanding work schedules, the kids’ ever increasing after-school activities, endless errands and the likes are causing families to have less and less time to spend together.
Yet, we all know how important it is to make time for one another. Having a family meal together is definitely one of the best settings to do so.
With some simple ideas and plannings, meal times can be enjoyable and memorable for the whole family.
For example, you can involve your children in the planning and preparation for the weekend morning breakfast. This helps to develops in them a sense of ownership.
Or you can designate certain meal times as exciting treats for them to look forward to. For example, at one stage my second son requested for Fridays to be sandwich days when he returns from school for his lunch. You can also choose an evening each month to be movie night at home where the whole family can enjoy a movie together with their dinner in the living room.
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Making the effort to create a routine of having regular a sit-down meal with your family is definitely worth the pay-offs. Below are 3 key benefits the family meal time brings to your children:
Your Children Eat Healthier
Your children are more likely to eat healthier and more nutritionally balanced foods when they eat home prepared meals with family members.
You can also better keep track of their diet and manage their portion size. Foods prepared away from home tend to contain more refined sugar, unhealthy fat contents, poor quality salt, flavoring additives such as monosodium glutamate . and ingredients that are more likely to be inferior in quality. Check out this blog post.
Take the opportunity to encourage and expose your children to try different varieties of healthier foods and expand their tastes even if they dislike certain foods initially.
In the past, my eldest son refused to eat mushroom and insisted that he would throw up should he unknowingly ate one. Recently, I found out to my pleasant surprise that he and his two brothers were able to finish a sizable portion of stir fried white button mushrooms with green vegetable and brown rice for their dinner. This happened only after years of encouragement over family meals.
Obesity amongst children is a worrying problem today and this could be due to a lack of supervision of our children’s meals especially when they take their meals away from home. Many parents today are also lax when it comes to their children’s diet and tend to give in to their children’s preference and especially for fast food.
Cook healthier foods for your family and have more regular family meals to make sure your children are consuming the right amount of calories and good quality foods for their bodies.
Your Children Grow Up Happier
With extra hours put in at the office and the children turning in early, there are times when I do not get the opportunities to converse with my children days on end.
Families members have so much competing commitments these days that members hardly get the chance to catch up with one another.
By making deliberate efforts and commitments to have family meals together, everyone can catch up, reconnect and exchange updates on what has been happening in their respective lives. Eating together serves to build family bonding and strengthen the foundation of the family identity.
Additionally, such family routine establishes a sense of emotional stability and security that are important to nurturing our children during their growing up years. Children who grow up in positive and stable family environments are more likely to mature into strong, resilient and confident adults.
Family mealtimes can also be great stress reliever with sharing of jokes and lighthearted discussions. Children who are left to eat alone will not have the opportunity to talk about their problems or have a relaxing chat to take their mind off any stress that they may be facing.
Miriam Weinstein, author of “The Surprising Power of Family Meals.”, commented that one of the biggest benefits of having family meals is the comforting knowledge that the family will get together on a regular basis for a low-key check-in.
Partaking of such meals together should be unhurried affairs. These are opportunities to inculcate the healthy habits of eating at an appropriate pace to our children and also passing the legacy of mealtime fellowship to our next generation.
In the US and Singapore, there are movements that promotes taking the time to eat together as a family. See here and here.
Your Children Becomes Smarter At The Meal Table
Mealtimes are great occasions to teach children the life skills of making conversation, listening as others speak, table manners and etiquette. For examples, you can teach your children to say please and thank you; sit with the right posture; chew their foods with their mouths closed and eat tidily.
Family meals give children opportunities to converse with adults as well as to pick up on how adults use words with each other. Kids who are exposed to regular family discussion times learn to use a broader vocabulary in their dialogues.
You can also teach kids responsibility and life skills by assigning them meal-related chores such as setting the table, serving members of the family and clearing the table and doing the dishes.
In conclusion, there are indeed good enough reasons to make a big deal of the family meal.
Ralph Waldo Emerson commented: “the first wealth is health”. To father champions, we need to teach our children about building good health through right eating habits. Without good health, our children do not have the energy to excel in what they do and enjoy life.
One of the greatest challenge to the family unit today is busyness. Without a strong and close-knitted family, our children cannot grow up to be secure, confident and happy. Therefore, we must not allow busyness to be an excuse for not making meal times a family routine and tradition in our homes.
Finally, integration is key to be able to function well in our packed schedules. Make meal times not only bonding times but also mentoring and coaching time for our young champions.