<p>I was wondering how many other families out there are making a concerted effort to have dinner together as a family. Our family has done this without exception for all of my two kids lives. This time of recounting the day at school and work, hearing the scuttlebut of what is going on at school, and sharing funny stories about life and popular culture is enjoyed by all. I think I can say that my two kids self image is high and there ability to relate with there parents has been increased due to this family time. My son is a senior in high school and is seeking early decision at an top level school. My daughter is a sophomore in high school and is very well adjusted and getting top grades in her class. We all get so busy in our own lives that what must make time for the most important things we have, our families. Hopefully, others out there are making the time for the best part of my day, the Dinner hour.</p>
<p>I make a concerted effort to have dinner together as a family, and always have. My two sons are 15 and 16. Unfortunately as they’ve gotten older, Mom has become less interesting and other things (computer games, XBox, even homework!) are more compelling than staying at the table and talking. They’re off in a flash as soon as they’re excused, but at least they still ask to be excused.</p>
<p>I think the theory of family dinners is wonderful and well worth the effort, I just wish it worked better in mine.</p>
<p>We have always sat down together for dinner as a family at the dinner table. D is in college now and S is a high school senior, so our table will be very different next year!!</p>
<p>Okay, I do have to admit that there have been a few times where we DID sit around the television to eat and watch Dancing With the Stars or American Idol . . .</p>
<p>We always ate together at the table, which is the way my DW and I were both raised. The conversation isn’t usually the “what happened today” type, usually a little more random. Occasionally it degenerated into some pretty geeky topics, particularly when my DS was still at home. Often we end up cutting up a little bit, and we have to be careful not to get Mom’o’2 laughing too hard with a full mouth!</p>
<p>Even if they rush off at the end of dinner or it doesn’t seem that special, there is something to it. Last year, both kids were involved with the same intesive EC where they weren’t home for dinner during the week for six weeks straight. I didn’t think that our mealtime conversations were that profound, but there was definitely something missing from our family during that period. </p>
<p>Now we are down to 1 kid, and she gets more attention. It’s still working.</p>
<p>Oh–and once in a blue moon, we eat in front of the football game or something. Not often, and we all watch, so that is special, too.</p>
<p>My family is a VERY busy group. My sister and I (we have a brother but he moved out in '97…he’s 12 years older than me) both participated in various ECs and were rarely home.</p>
<p>So my parents decided to choose one night a week where we would have dinner together (usually on the weekends). It worked well for us. :)</p>
<p>We ate together a lot more when I was smaller, but we still eat together often, just not around the dining room table.</p>
<p>Sounds nice…never happens in my house;We are often all around the kitchen when each of us eats, but the kicthen table is often piled with stuff. We have tried to commit to eating togather once a week; I think we will try again.</p>
<p>Cosmo Kramer: " You know what you do at dinner, don’t you?"
Jerry Seinfeld: “No, what?”
Cosmo Kramer: “You talk about your day!”</p>
<p>Or something like that… It’s a standing joke at our house when we sit down together for dinner, which doesn’t happen that often. Five people with too many different activities.</p>
<p>We have always eaten together as a family. My daughters are both out of the house now, but both have told me how important eating together was for them. They have also told me that when they talk about eating together as a family that most of their peers did not have that experience.
And, when they’re home, we all still eat togehter.</p>
<p>We eat dinner together every night. It’s pretty rare anyone is missing though I occasionally have an evening meeting and dh is sometimes away at conferences. Sometimes the boys were in eat and run mode. If they had papers to write they were apt to linger. We discuss everything - politics, math, homework, Sci-fi shows and books, computer games.</p>
<p>Dad’o 2–sounds like us, before the first 3 went off to college. I miss those days.
Sometimes it’s just me and child #4 now…pretty quiet. (DH travels a lot.)</p>
<p>:( Thats us mommusic.
Child #1 and Child #2 are in college
DH travels a lot
Child #3 and I eat dinner together. Its awfully boring. Cooking is such a drag. And the leftovers never end.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I agree that there is any relationship between eating together as a family and high GPA. More likely just happy well-adjusted families. There are plenty of brilliant kids who are on the go from a very early age, and meals are often grab-and-go. And then there are also many extremely tight-knit families, close and loving, who always eat together, and the kids are your everyday lovely average people.</p>
<p>We eat dinner together every night with only a rare exception. All the kids do well in school, some better than others. It is so important to keep up with what is going on in your kids’ lives. It helps with every aspect of raising a family, not just the schoolwork issue.</p>
<p>We eat dinner together every night. </p>
<p>But until we made S go to a no-fun-all-rules-dress-code-mandatory-after-school-if-you-don’t-turn-in-your-homework magnet high school – he quite happily brought home Ds. </p>
<p>So much for that dinner/success theory – at least at my house.</p>
<p>We have always eaten dinner together, unless H is on a business trip. We eat late, because he’s seldom home before 7:30, but that’s the way it works for us. I don’t really understand how people don’t eat dinner together, unless kids are at ECs – when dinner is ready, I call everyone and we eat. How else would it work? They’re not about to cook for themselves! :)</p>
<p>We gave up on family dinners long ago. Too many conflicting schedules. And we don’t even all like the same food.</p>
<p>Neither kid turned out to be an ax murderer. At least not so far. 
One made it to what CCers call a “lower Ivy” and the other to a flagship state university, where they do not yet seem to have committed any felonies or flunked out of school.</p>
<p>And mine did cook for themselves starting early in high school. It’s just a matter of keeping plenty of easy-to-prepare stuff in the house. Or we would stop for takeout food on the way back from ECs. </p>
<p>If Mom is picking up kids at ECs and Dad is uninterested in preparing family meals (as is the case at our house), I don’t see how you can eat as a family unless you constantly live on takeout. Mom can’t cook when she’s in the car.</p>
<p>It sounds like a really nice idea. I wish my parents were like that, but unfortunately, we practically never eat meals together except on holidays or when we have relatives and friends over. We usually eat at separate times. Some of your kids may whine, but eventually I think they’ll realize how lucky they were to get that bit of family time in every day :)</p>
<p>We eat dinner together nearly every night, even though DH gets home at 8, and even though DS2 is out at Upper School til 9 on Tuesdays. We have crazy schedules, and fortunately three of the four of us cook, so someone is usually around to get things going.</p>
<p>We may be discussing an eposide of Law and Order or House, the news, how mortgages work, DS2’s current debate topic, sci books, DS1’s various projects, etc., but we make an effort to connect every day. We are all out the door at unearthly hours in the AM, and DS2 and I are not morning people. Connect with me at 5:45 am and I may cause bodily harm!</p>
<p>DH was at a conference 5-6 years ago and the speaker rambled on for an hour about some obscure aspect of commodities, and then finished up with “If you don’t remember anything else I say, remember this: eating dinner with your children pays off.” He took it to heart.</p>
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<p>Marian–exactly. That’s one reason we never did the intensive soccer thing with our kids. It wrecks the dinner “hour” and you live in the car.</p>
<p>The other reason, for us, is that games would have been on Saturdays, which makes it difficult to be at all Jewishly observant.</p>
<p>Our rule is that whoever cooks doesn’t have to clean up. It worked well when there were just the two of us, but as things got more complicated, and H traveled,…</p>
<p>Now when it’s just my son and I, and esp. if we both have somewhere to go after dinner, occasionally we eat at Chipotle or a pizza joint. No cook, no cleanup! And it forces us to talk to each other.</p>
<p>When my kids were home, at least some of us had dinner together every night (except Saturday, which was iffy). My wife works in another city, so she generally wasn’t there except Friday-Sunday (and sometimes Thursday). We “all” still eat dinner together every night: the dog and I.</p>
<p>Should I admit it? We evolved the habit of watching an hour of TV together in place of the family dinner. H always worked at dinner hour and EC’s were brutal. And as others said, everyone ate something different.</p>
<p>I gave up cooking, although most adults think I cook well. Kids always preferred their own concoctions or current obsessions. D ate sushi at as many meals as she could; DS ate pasta whenever he could, which turned out to be almost every day. </p>
<p>So, we liked at watch West Wing reruns or some such show and talk together about what was happening on the show. Somehow even with all the discussions we always followed the show. Both kids claim their 4’s on AP Govt. when all their friends got 2’s (only a 1/2 yr. course) was from West Wing.</p>
<p>I was actually relieved to not have good the center of our lives. Packed the refrigerator with healthy or healthish food, and the kids enjoyed feeding themselves.</p>
<p>We would schedule one meal out a week where we could really focus on each other. We still do it when kids are home.</p>
<p>Both kids fit, slim, healthy and academically achieving.</p>