Growing up, we either ate at the dinner table as a family or watched the nightly news while eating on TV trays. Discussion about current events was plentiful.
In today's world of hockey, soccer, basketball and so many other activities, family dinners seem to be a "catch as catch can" thing. One grandson plays hockey 4 nights a week and his Dad picks him up at 7 p.m.
New research is now showing family dinners are the greatest gift you can give your children.
Kids are:
- Demonstrating better self-esteem and higher grade-point averages.
- Three times less likely to smoke, two times less likely to drink or do drugs.
- More likely to become National Merit Scholarship winners or CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. You get the drift.
Nightly family dinners in today's world are a real challenge with working parents and kids' extracurricular activities. How about 1) making a huge effort to have a Sunday night dinner or another special night together or 2) before bedtime getting everybody together to talk about their day?
Family talk is so important. Make time for it.