When I got married my husband brought dinner into the household. Inititally, my daughter, then 11, was skeptical. Before he arrived dinner was a haphazard affair that she and I rarely ate together. I usually rushed home from work, fed her, and then ate myself after she was in bed.  

But he wasn’t having any of that.  Three or four nights a week, whenever we could manage it, he made dinner and the three of us sat down to eat it.  That’s when we talked.   

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have published several studies on how regular family meals can have a powerful affect on the healthy behavior of teenagers. Kids who sit down to dinner — or brunch or any other family meal — at least five times a week are less likely to engage in all kinds of dangerous things. Today, they report that for girls, the benefits of sharing meals with their families has staying power. Those who ate least five times a week with their families as adolescents had half the odds of drinking, smoking or using marijuana as older teenagers. 

They don’t know why it doesn’t seem to have the same affect on boys. They speculate that girls are more likely to pick up on the nuanced messages they get from adults.  I don’t know either, because I just had the one girl.  Over time she came to look forward to those dinners — the food more than the conversation. She called them “real dinners.” When she had a bad day, or was hungry, or was overwhelmed with homework, she would say, “are we having a real dinner tonight?”

Like most adolescents and teenagers, she would try to resist engaging with us. But my husband was having any of that either. He could always find a way to get her going, and before she realized it, she was hooked into a conversation. 

Now, when she comes home, dinner is a big deal. A tradition. He asks her ahead of time what she wants, and they discuss the menu in detail.  When we sit down we talk, sometimes for a long time. And it’s not at all hard to engage her anymore.

What are your family dinner traditions?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 6:58 am and is filed under adolescence, teenagers, what to eat (and not). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.