<p>Neither kid could really eat when bus came at 6:45. Tried everything, even protein shake thingies. DS finally hit on macaroni and cheese. DD ate fruit. I just had to let the food thing go because both were too strong minded to listen to anything I said, and since they are both physical (DD danced upteen hours a week; DS doesn’t know how to walk, only run) and never get sick I finally just backed off.</p>
<p>I never worried about how much they ate, just the quality, but I let them tend to their eating. I did explain they might be ill later on, but DD wanted a salad every day just because she did; DS is a bit of a worry but cholesterol has always been so low the doctor has begged me, jokingly I think, to take him home and give him ice cream.</p>
<p>I think I just got ornery, picky kids when it came to food. I was so grateful that DD wasn’t anorexic that I almost jumped for joy when she ate a cookie. The dance world can do that to you.</p>
<p>riverrunner, I’ve always wished that we could all eat breakfast together, but our group is a rather crabby lot in the morning. None of us are morning people. We all get up when we have to, stumble down to the kitchen and eat our food in front of the newspaper. If I’m up, I tend to ask too many questions and then they say “Mom, I’ve got this down to a science. I know exactly how many minutes it takes me to eat, get ready and get out the door. Please don’t talk to me. I’ll be late!” Oh well, we do eat dinner together.<br>
We sit down at the table and eat together most nights at 7:30. It’s late, but my H is never home before 7:00 and by then the EC’s are generally over. During play season, I used to have dinner ready early and sit w/DD while she ate. I ate with the rest of the family when H got home. Our kids were not picky eaters. My kids always had a bowl of cereal and fruit right after school and then the kitchen was closed until dinner. When dinner is served at 7:30, they come running!" (Son used to pick out mushrooms, but otherwise no problems.)
I’ve read a lot recently about how people tend to eat more when we eat in front of the tv. It’s easy to consume a whole bag of chips or huge bowl of popcorn during an intense movie or even a boring one!</p>
<p>Eat breakfast together. No way. DD gets up at 7:00 A.M, gets ready and leaves the house at 7:15 A.M for class that starts at 7:30 A.M. DD gets it down to an exact science, she leaves no room for error.:)</p>
<p>Quote:
"The kids also eat a hot breakfast every morning, cooked by DH, which they tell me is very rare among their school friends. </p>
<p>They all eat at the same time? How do you manage that?"</p>
<p>Since our older child was in 7th grade, they’ve both gone to the same school, and, happily, they don’t need to leave the house until 7:50. They drive together, no longer requiring my services as chauffer. My husband loves cooking them breakfast, but he often leaves for work before they are there to eat it. We’re kind of a high metabolism family - I think they’d starve by 10:00 if they didn’t eat a real meal at home :)</p>
<p>DH is the early riser and cooks eggs for anyone who is up with up and wants them. Mathson only ate cereal, but little brother usually has eggs. Little brother had to be at school at 7:15 every day last year, every other day this year. It’s only a ten minute or so drive. Mathson walked unless the weather was icky. DH also cooks waffles on the weekends.</p>
<p>While the main thrust of the study is substance abuse, here’s a quote from the press release about academics:</p>
<p>"Teens who have dinner with their families five or more times a week are likelier to say that they receive mostly A’s and B’s in school compared to teens who have dinner with their families fewer than three times a week (64 percent vs. 49 percent). Teens who have fewer than three family dinners per week are more than twice as likely to do poorly in school. "</p>
<p>One of the most brilliant people I know, now a dept. chair at a top 10 university, claims that he didn’t know that it was not normal in most families for everyone to arrive at the dinner table with their own book as dinner reading material until he was 30!</p>
<p>Given that book in hand is how kids and I would prefer to spend most recreational moments, I was expressely trying to avoid this at the dinner table. Someplace I got the impression that socialization is part of the parental job description…</p>
<p>But now, left to my own devices more and more, reading is an integral part of the dinner hour. Very pleasurable.</p>
<p>We did not allow TV on during dinner – just can’t stand the noise. We did allow reading, because sometimes you’re just at a really good part of a book and can’t put it down!</p>
<p>Count me in one of the categories of “loser moms”…for a variety of reasons, the sitting down for family dinner is the exception instead of the rule around here. Trying to get everyone’s schedules to align, frankly, usually causes such stres that the Norman Rockwell moment is long gone. At least we’re the exception in Columbia’s study! We spend a lot of “family time” together; it’s just at other times of the day than a dinner hour that never aligns with everyone’s schedule.</p>
<p>We eat dinner as a family most nights–although the time of the dinner may change depending on when the kids have activities (e.g. starting at 6:30 if they’re home by 6 PM, eating early if one of them has a dance lesson at 7:00. I enjoy our family meals and chance to connect with the kids so much – because mine, too, are in their rooms with their laptops/homework as soon as dinner is over! Our conversations, too, may range from what’s going on with their friends to world events.</p>
<p>Because H and I both work full-time outside the home, this requires a bit of planing. Helped by having “structured” take out a couple of nights a week (Tuesday pizza, Friday carry-out chicken). I’ve also been going once a month to meal-preparation sessions – have you heard of these? I use Dream Dinners, but there are lots of others. You go to a session for 2 hours, and can make 12 meals for your family that stay in the freezer til you’re ready to cook them. They’re quite tasty, and it’s fun for me to do a bit of cooking without the prep work/clean up. There’s a list with instructions for cooking (some just need to be popped in the oven, while others require a bit more cooking), and there are suggested side dishes/veggies for each. Somehow, just knowing what I’m doing for dinner and that it’s only going to take 30 minutes or so to make it happen is very liberating.</p>
<p>We eat dinner as a family more nights than we don’t, although DH has work commitments one or two nights during the week. Still, the rest of us sit down together even if he’s not home. Then there are those nights when S1 is out too, so it’s just me and S2, the kindergartener - which means a lot of conversation about Tintin and Snowy. Or one of those special book-at-the-table nights. Which <em>still</em> means Tintin and Snowy. We do eat later than many families with kids S2’s age, so that we <em>can</em> sit down together. </p>
<p>Does it make the kids more successful, overall, as students? Who knows. My kids are reasonably good students, for which I’m thankful, but I’m not sure family mealtime gets the credit. I just think it’s nice, when it can happen. Even if one or more members can’t make it. (D was the one most often absent, bcs of her sports schedule. But I counted it as a family meal if more than two of us were in the stands, cheering and having a sandwich.)</p>
<p>And yes, Momof3, we had one of those places here for an all-too-brief time. Ours was called 123-Dinner. The recipes were great, the fact that someone else did ALL the prep work (chopping, etc.) and all the clean-up was terrific, and the fact that I had already done the hardest part of all, figuring out what to make, was truly liberating. 123-Dinner closed and I really miss it.</p>
<p>(Actually we called it 123-Girls’ Night, because a friend used to organize parties of 10 or 12 of us to go on the same night and cook, dish, and have a glass or two of wine. DH used to joke that he could tell which meals had been put together towards the end of the evening!)</p>
Or one of those special book-at-the-table nights. Which <em>still</em> means Tintin and Snowy. We do eat later than many families with kids S2’s age, so that we <em>can</em> sit down together. </p>