How do you get teens to participate in harmonious family meals?
From
Beverly Mills
| August 24, 2009
In Kitchen Basics
Featured Recipe: My Best-Ever Salvation Spaghetti
The research is very clear and widely discussed -- kids who eat regular family meals are:
• Twice as likely to get A’s in school
• 45% less likely to try alcohol and 24% less likely to try marijuana
• 32% less likely to have ever smoked a cigarette
• Half as likely to be highly stressed or suffer extreme boredom
What I love about these stats is that they confirm what I always knew in my heart of hearts: Family dinners really do matter. I’m not just cooking and flinging food into a senseless void. But all good things must come to an end. My youngest flies off to college next week and I can hardly believe I no longer have a nightly dinner deadline. I find myself feeling rather triumphant about what those dinners meant to family life in our household, and I marvel at the fact that against all practical odds – (sports practices, math tutors and confirmation classes to name a few) -- I somehow pulled it off more nights than not.
But actually getting the food on the table is just the start of it.
Once everybody sits down, how do you transform the tendency of teens to shovel in the food and flee? And now that you’ve finally got everyone’s attention, it’s tempting to try and solve family problems between bites of beef stew. I am here to testify: If you want to promote proper digestion (and family unity), save those difficult discussions for another time.
So how DID we do it? Several obvious things – cook food worth eating, serve it when they’re hungry and make the dinner hour non-negotiable and somewhat sacrosanct. I’m sure there are tons of other ideas for getting teens to the table and keeping them there and I’d love to hear ideas from other families. How do YOU do it? Please post your ideas in the comments section following this post!
Comments
From Beverly Mills - August 31, 2009
From Robin Landers of Miami, via Facebook: Let them plan the menu. And they can cook it "their" way.
Related Recipes
My Best-Ever Salvation Spaghetti
May 21, 2009
This is almost too simple to qualify as a recipe, but everyone I've ever served it to loves it.
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From Maria M. - August 24, 2009
: ) Teens and dinner, a WHOLE category in itself. 1) If THEY build it, ...okay, COOK, they will come. Our teens are more likely to sit and eat dinner if they helped put it together. More and more, I sit at the island and help guide the process, while they make dinner. 2) A sitcom is 30 minutes long, surely they can sit that long. At our house, even the speediest eater can 'endure' 30 minutes with the family. Fleeing is allowed, after the 30 minutes. Though, more than once, my husband raising his brow has caused a teen to sit back down. Along the same lines, cell phones are banned at the table for the same reason. 3) The more the merrier! If getting one of our neices and nephews to sit an eat dinner with us means inviting the friend who happens to be on hand, then so be it. In turn, the friend can help set the table, put dishes out onto the table, clean, etc. All seem pleased to be involved in getting dinner on the table. 4) Start them young. All our kids know what is expected in terms of family dinners, be it at our house or within their own households. All of us, the adults, have always made it a point to be consistant in our approach and expectations.