My 2 secret ingredients for successful family dinners

You are not going to believe this is not about food at all! But if you saw this video of parents pretending to serve dinner to their children as if in a restaurant, you felt it, the love and the connection at mealtimes.

Now perhaps you already gather the family at dinner, but did you know that family dinners offer much more than food! Children who participate in family dinners:

have a reduced risk of obesity[1],
get better nutrition[2],
do better at school[3],
have improved language skills[4],
show more resilience[5],
develop a more positive view of the future[6],

compared to their peers who do not partake in family dinners.

Want your children to benefit? It is easier than you think, because there are two secret ingredients you need to bring to dinner: love and connection.

What is dinnertime love?

In his book, hungry for love, Charlie Slaugther, inspires us to show some dinner time love! What does that even mean?

Well it is about creating a mealtime that provides a safe space that is:

Pleasant and joyful, instead of fearful or anxious. We can review our expectations and seek to understand the behaviour of an anxious child at dinner. We can set up reassuring routines and rules. As parents we can agree to make dinner time a pleasant and joyful time.
Measured and pressure free, instead of controlling or critical. We can be less reactive to what and how much our children eat. We can avoid connecting food to size or appearance. We can be neutral about the value or virtue of the food we serve.
Developmentally supportive. At each age, children need to learn new steps about eating. For example, babies learn to manage different textures, toddlers learn to sit down a bit longer, children learn to use their cutlery etc. As parents we can provide opportunities and challenges so children can progress.

Trusting: can our child trust that dinner time will be pleasant, warm and engaging? Children need to trust their parents that mealtime will be safe today and tomorrow. They need to trust that they are offered a good variety of food for learning in their own time. They need to trust that an adult will be connected with them during the meal.

What is dinnertime connection?

For dinner time connection to occur you and the children will need:

Practice and regularity. If you cannot join the children every day, can you do it over the weekend?
No distractions. Can you turn off the screens and leave the mobile phones away? Can you decide to be present?
Reassuring rituals. Those can be fun and provide predictability for the children: Friday home made pizza, Music night or after dinner game night, Fancy dinner night? Will you have an after dinner dance clean up?
Gratefulness: now everyone’s is sitting down you can restore, both emotionally and physically. What are you grateful for? Say it at dinner!
Flow: It can be tricky to get a conversation going, especially with younger children. There are many conversation cards you can find on the Internet.Some families I know ask children to share the highlights of their day; others use conversation cards, or crack a few jokes. In our family we use a “conch” which we pass around so everyone can have a say and contribute to the conversation. In this setting, we hear and value children as equal members of the family. I often encourage using families to use these 20 Questions from M. Duke’s research, as potential discussion topics. It is simple to see how those benefit children. They provide grounding and understanding of one’s family, a firm base that is a foundation of resilience.

Love and connection are two nurturing ingredients of your family dinner! What may appear an effort in the beginning can become a cherished occasion in no time. My children are at Uni now, so when they are home having dinner with us, they value this time together, they want to connect. If I leave the table a bit too quickly (I find I have so much to do 🙂 they call me out for it. I come back to the table pleased and grateful! Then when it is time to clean up I sometimes play our favourite clean up tune: “boogie wonderland’! Wishing you the best of family dinners. If you are struggling with family dinners because your child is a fussy eater, you can download my FREE e-book, turn the tide on stressful family dinners here.

[1] Come and Get It! A Discussion of Family Mealtime Literature and Factors Affecting Obesity Risk1–3

Jennifer Martin-Biggers, Kim Spaccarotella, Amanda Berhaupt-Glickstein, Nobuko Hongu, John Worobey, Carol Byrd-Bredbenner

[2] Family Dinner and Diet Quality Among Older Children and Adolescents

Matthew W. Gillman, MD; Sheryl L. Rifas-Shiman, MPH; A. Lindsay Frazier, MD; Helaine R. H. Rockett, MS, RD; Carlos A. Camargo, Jr, MD; Alison E. Field, ScD; Catherine S. Berkey, ScD; Graham A. Colditz, MD

Arch Fam Med. 2000;9:235-240.

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/01/12/the-most-important-thing-you-can-do-with-your-kids-eat-dinner-with-them/

do better at school, improve language skills

[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/01/12/the-most-important-thing-you-can-do-with-your-kids-eat-dinner-with-them/

do better at school, improve language skills

[5] Duke, MP., Fivush, R. Lazarus, A. & Bohanek, J. (2003) Of Ketchup and Kin: Dinnertime Conversations as a Major Source of Family Knowledge, Family Adjustment, and Family Resilience.

[6] Correlations between family meals and psychosocial well-being among adolescents.

Eisenberg ME1, Olson RE, Neumark-Sztainer D, Story M, Bearinger LH.