A Minute for Parents

Summary

An Essential Ingredient for Every Family

Article

By JoAnn Hibbert Hamilton

“More than a decade of research by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University has consistently found that the more often children eat dinner with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, drink or use drugs” (LDS Church News, March 27, 2010).

Today’s families are on the run. Between sports practices and games, music recitals and concerts, dance recitals, church activities, school activities and family plans there is little time left. According to the editorial page of the LDS Church News, the ingredient we can’t afford to leave out is having family dinner together.

Values are being transmitted over the media, through video games, in the schools and in the community. Mealtime could provide a sounding board for what your family is hearing and experiencing.

“Researchers at one of America’s most prestigious universities have called family dinner an essential ingredient in the recipe for raising happy, healthy children. In addition, (as mentioned above), family dinner is a predictor in keeping children away from unhealthy behaviors” (Ibid.).

Here are the benefits that this article attributed to eating family dinners together:

·Eat healthier meals.
·Are less likely to become overweight or obese.
·Are more likely to stay away from cigarettes.
·Are less likely to drink alcohol.
·Are less likely to try marijuana.
·Are less likely to use illicit drugs.
·Are less likely to have friends who abuse prescription drugs.
·Will get better grades in school.
·Will talk to their parents more.
·Will be more likely to tell parents about serious problems.
·Will be more likely to feel that their parents are proud of them.
·Will live in a home where there is less stress and tension.

Verifying the importance of this, Joseph A. Califano Jr., chairman and president of the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, said, “If I could wave a magic wand to make a dent in our nation’s substance abuse problem, I would make sure that every child in America had dinner with his or her parents at least five times a week” (Ibid.).

Notice this comparison: “Compared to teens who have five to seven family dinners in a typical week, teens who dine with their families fewer than three nights in a typical week are two times more likely to have tried marijuana, more than twice as likely to have tried cigarettes and one and a half times more likely to have tried alcohol,” according to the Center’s 2006 report. This report also found that frequent family dinners are associated with higher academic performance.

Teens who have dinner with their families five to seven times in a typical week are more likely to get mostly A’s and B’s in school compared to teens who dine with their families fewer than three times per week (Ibid.).

Now that my family is grown, let me mention here one other thing most of my children have come back to me and shared that they really liked at our home. After family prayers, in the morning we ate breakfast and I read to them. We read religious books as well as books that they chose. It didn’t matter how much I read. If they brought up questions, we talked. It was a pleasant time. Sometimes they got so interested that later in the evening they wanted me to read again.

Let me include the last sentence of the LDS Church article. It was a sentence that was promoted by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse: “What your kids really want for dinner is you!”

Best wishes as you strive to have dinner together and perhaps breakfast, too.