Family Dinners

Every family is different. They are made up of different people, different beliefs, and different traditions. Some may say that the environment with which you grow up in shapes the person you are for the rest of your life. I have always been very close with my family: with my sister, my parents, and even my extended family. I believe that this has to do primarily with Family Dinners. What are family dinners? A Family Dinner is when everyone comes together to eat as a family. No television, no phones, just the members of the family gathered around a table eating together and sharing ones company. It doesn’t have to be a home cooked meal, just as long as everyone comes together and eats together on a regular basis. This allows for conversations about each person’s day’s to formulate and forms a new bonding time that each member of the family shares together. According to Gayle Peterson, PhD “family belonging provides a safe haven for parents and children alike. Family Dinners not only satisfy our physical and emotional needs, but also offer a time and place to consciously teach our children the value of caring for others” (Peterson).

My mom is a swimming teacher at a private school in New York City. One of her students never ate with her parents. Both her mother and father would work late every night leaving this child to either eat alone or with her nanny. Throughout my life I have eaten with my family basically every night. Obviously there are some nights that one member may be away, but on a general basis, we all came together and ate together. This student’s mother spoke to my mom about how she needed something get her daughter to communicate more and for her to become closer with her child. The only answer was to introduce family dinners into the picture. Even if it’s not everyday at first, all they had to do was come together as a family and eat together. A few weeks later my mom was approached by this mother and she was so happy with how much more involved she was in her daughter’s life.

By growing up with family dinners I truly believe that is the reason why I am so close with my parents and sister. We make time for each other and bond together as a family. This has built core values in me that I hopefully can pass onto my children. By being exposed to family dinners, I truly value family relationships. My family and I pride ourselves with how close we are. Some experts even say that the more families that eat together, the less likely the kids resort to drugs and the more likely they do well in school. Family dinners instill core values into each member of the family and teach the kids respect, kindness, and even love. Nancy Gibbs, author of The Magic of Family states that: “there is something about a shared meal–not some holiday blowout, not once in a while but regularly, reliably–that anchors a family even on nights when the food is fast and the talk cheap and everyone has someplace else they’d rather be”.