Written by Sarah
Do you eat together as a family? Spending just one meal together helps us connect to each other and as a family!
Sometimes family eating is a struggle!
Are meal times a rushed event in your household?
Do you eat meals together as a family?
I get that it’s difficult to always enjoy a civilised family meal or depending on your household have everyone home for dinner at a respectable hour!
However, where you can it is so important to try to be able to have some mealtimes together as a family. Hopefully, these are habits that can be created early on with kids as they start to eat family meals which can then continue as they grow up.
My memories
I have great memories of family dinners as a kid, Saturday nights were roast dinner night. Our family of 4 would sit around the dining room table (often as a candlelit dinner), table set, mum and dad with a glass of wine and my sister and I with a plastic wine glass with fizzy drink as a special treat and tuck into a delicious meal.
So, what is the best way to achieve this?
Now a family meal doesn’t have to be exactly like that but it’s the importance of that family time, coming together and regrouping. It gives the family a chance to chat about their day and catch up with one another. It also means you are more likely to sit and take the time to enjoy and savour the meal rather than inhaling it! It doesn’t have to be the dinner meal either, it’s about what works best for your family.
Now I should also say that a family meal doesn’t have to be sitting around a table, it could be grouped together at the breakfast bar or a picnic on the lounge floor (tv off) or outside; what matters is that the family are together and there are minimal distractions from the TV, phone, books, etc.
Importance of role-modelling
Mealtimes together are also more than eating together as a family, it’s a good chance to model good behaviour.
Our children see us sitting and eating at a table, we can teach them table manners and they see us enjoying food on our plate and hopefully, they can start to model this behaviour too! It’s also a good opportunity for kids to be exposed to different foods and seeing us eating it will give them some reassurance that it’s ok for them to eat it too.
Summary
If you have found yourself rushing family meals, eating in front of the tv or devices I challenge you to try at least once a week (to begin with) to organise a family meal, get rid of technology and enjoy the time together as a family.
