How to Build Better Human Beings Via Dinner

Welcome back to another week. I trust that you found the title for this blog interesting, How to Build Better Human Beings Via Dinner, and I'll get into what I mean about that.

When I first started learning about all the research that was being done around how family dinner time improves not only your relationship with your significant other but certainly your relationship with your kids, I was astounded by the results of some of these studies. I was recently talking to a friend, and going over this concept that she had never heard of, and she's like, "Wow, I don't even spend time with my family. We typically don't eat together, or we have distractions over the dinner table."

If this is a new concept for you, then let's dig in, and I'll share some interesting information with you. It might cause you to change the way that you do dinner time.

When I first learned about this family dinnertime research, I went back to my family and said, "Okay, we got a new rule. We're going to be doing dinner together."

They're like, "What do you mean?"

I was like, "We're going to be sitting down and having dinner every night."

With very few exceptions, we do this. I have a small family - I only have one child. So, it makes it a little bit easier to have dinner together. There are nights we miss for certain events or whatever, but in general we are spending good meal time together.

Let's look at the research I pulled up on the internet. There are a couple ways that you can search this.  I just did "Dinner and Teen Behavior", and I got all kinds of hits. Let's run through a few of them, and I'll show you what I mean. You can do your own research, because there's plenty out there.

The first article is titled, "Family Dinners Linked to Less Risky Behaviors in Teens. For example, teens are more than twice as likely to use alcohol and 2.5 times more likely to use marijuana if they're not having family dinners together. Some of these kinds of things are really interesting to look at!

Here's another point, "Three-quarters of teens reported having dinner with family at least once a week said the interaction and togetherness were the best part of the meal. Those who spent seven hours or less per week with their parents were twice as likely to use alcohol, and twice as likely to say they expected to try drugs, compared with teens who spent 21 hours or more a week with their parents." That is interesting.

Let's go to the next article. This one says, "Numerous studies over the last 15 years," and this was written in 2013. There's really been a lot of research on this topic. I liked what they said here, "Why do family dinners offer such benefits? The simplest answer is that dinner is a reliable occasion for teens to feel connected to their parents. It is this connection that provides the real seat belt on the potholed road of adolescence." We all know that, right?

"What is so magical about meal time?" This lady talks about how many of us don't farm together, play musical instruments together, stitch quilts together, because we're in industrialized countries, and we're all running around doing stuff. However, in this survey where American teens were asked when they are most likely to talk with their parents, "dinner" was the top answer. It went on to say, "Kids who eat dinner with their parents experience less stress, and have a better relationship with them."

Let's go on to this next article. It's talking about eating together, and America's drug problem. This quote here, "America's drug problem is not going to be solved in court rooms or legislative hearing rooms by judges and politicians. It will be solved in the living rooms and the dining rooms and across kitchen tables by parents and families." I believe that is so true.

The first articles were all about families, and then I googled "dinner and spouse benefits". The first article on this search talks about how eating together helps you to connect, eating together provides an opportunity to practice gratitude, eating together helps you to relax, eating together encourages mindful eating, and it improves nutrition.

Last night was Friday night, and I had dinner with only my spouse, because my son was out at the Friday night football game, and we did it a little special. I put the candles outside, set up the outside dinner table, got some wine, got the music going, and when she came outside, she's like, "Wow! This is really special," and we hung out there for maybe an hour or so talking, catching up on work, and life, and what's going on. That's just really great time together. Try that out if you don't do that very often. You don't have to go out to an expensive restaurant to have a nice meal with your spouse!

The next article is interesting because it gives some rules for a successful family dinner: no TV and no phones of any kind. Honestly, my family breaks the phone rule, but there's a reason. We allow phones at our dinner table because if we're having a conversation about something, and we want to look something up, or check a fact, or find out more information on what we're discussing, we go ahead and look that up on the phone. But it's very intentional, and you can't just be having your phone, checking your texts, and things like that.

Other rules include no games, no watching shows, no arguments of fighting, but just talk, and say grace, and have gratitude, and be thankful. I have talked a lot about gratitude in previous posts.

Another rule is that everybody comes to the table. Now, in my family this is an important one, because sometimes my son will eat when he gets home from school, and then he's not hungry when we're ready to sit down for dinner. But I make him come over and sit at the table anyway. In the beginning, when I made him do that, he would complain, but now he just gets it. It's just part of what we do, he shows up, and he engages in the conversation. It's always a good time.

The final dinner rule is an important one, too. Don't rush the family dinner. A lot of times people are like, "Oh, I got so much to do." But it's really important to be intentional about taking time to be together.

That's all I wanted to share this week. If you haven't seen this kind of research before, like I said, it's easy to find on Google. Go check it out for yourself, and I trust that this adds value to your family, and/or significant other relationships. Have a great week!