How can we encourage families to spend more time eating together?

Question

This is the real Tom Aiken. For further details check out this blog post:
http://uk.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-qT1KKP…

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

1. Set a specific time for eating each day, when everyone is at home.

2. Get everyone involved in the cooking process. For example, small children can make dessert, older children can look up recipes, while the parents make the main meal and help the younger ones.

3. Decide what meal will be eaten that day quite early on so that there is time to delegate tasks and to prepare some foods in advance, particularly if it's a busy day and there's less time to eat together.

4. Decide upon foods everyone likes, or foods that no one has tried before in order to add variation and entice people to the table. For example, fajitas are well liked by loads of people because you can stuff them with anything, so there can be a variety and everyone will eat something. Shepherds pie is another example, I know someone who puts baked beans in theirs and it still tastes good. Seafood risotto, roasted artichoke with dips, an exotic fruit salad (dragonfruit, starfruit, pineapple, papaya, lychee, etc) or even a home made Chinese are all examples of foods rarely attempted at home.

5. Get families to spice up what they eat. Eat less chips, in fact don't even stock them, and try new things. Instead of rice, use cous cous, or on a salad, add some croutons. Buy a bottle of salad dressing and give it a whirl. Don't just go to Tesco or Sainsbury for food and don't buy the same junk two weeks running. Try farmers markets for food or a butchers for something with more meat and less fat on.

In essence, families need to find time for each other and step away from the mundane.

Asker's Rating:

Asker's Comment:

A great answer. Thank you.

Answer 2

give them about twenty bucks per meal

Answer 3

if you have tones of cash give them 40$ or so or be something they like =-)

Answer 4

well i think it's good for the parents to ask the kids what they want for supper that night. if the kid says "i don't know" then maybe the parent should give them some ideas or choices.

Answer 5

Try to make meals that they will all eat and enjoy. Try to use the dinning table as often as possible (if you have one) to encourage conversation at dinner time. Do not have the tv ,radio etc switched on as these are unwanted distractions at meal times.

Answer 6

Turn off the T.V.

Answer 7

Make something that not only is inviting in smell, but make a point to cook favorite dinners. Try to schedule dinner during a time when everyone is home and not being rushed because of things they have to do or places to go....MAKE DESSERT!!! That will get them running.

Answer 8

It's actually up to the parents to make sure this happens. It's a good time to spend quality time as a family to discuss the day's events. Parents need to make sure their children are home by a certain time for family supper and that the television is turned OFF during mealtime. Also, maybe get the kids involved in helping to prepare supper. Even the smallest child can do something! Use this time to communicate and get in touch with your kids.

Source(s):

My dad.

Answer 9

would you mind coming round to my place and cooking dinner for me you look very yummie. but on a serious note my family always eat together that's because we like to talk about our day while eating. and my mom is a great cook too !!!!

Answer 10

What is Family Day?
“Family Day – a Day to Eat Dinner With Your Children” is a national effort to promote family togetherness at mealtime. On Monday, September 25, we encourage all parents to recognize the important role a family dinner can play. Studies show the more often a child eats with the family, the less likely that child is to someday smoke, drink, or use illegal drugs. Teens who have regular family meals are less likely to get into fights, get suspended from school, have sex, or have suicidal thoughts. Instead, children who have frequent family meals are more likely to do better in school, develop positive eating habits, and adopt healthy behavior. Family meals promote bonding and family interaction. They can help children improve their self-esteem and develop social skills that can last a lifetime. Family mealtime can be used as an opportunity for parents and children to discover and carry out important aspects of a healthy lifestyle. Examples include:

Healthy Family Dining
Sharing a meal nourishes the body and the soul. Family mealtime provides the setting for moral, spiritual, and intellectual discussion and teaching. Eating flavorful, healthy foods is one of life’s greatest pleasures, especially when shared with the family. The benefits of eating together make family mealtime a tradition worth pursuing.

Safe Food Handling
Creating meals together offers the perfect opportunity for spending quality time with your loved ones. You can “slice and dice” while sharing stories and winding down for the day, using this important time to communicate and understand each other better. With minimal fuss or pre-planning, everyone from dad and mom to smaller kids and teens can join in and “serve up” some family-centered fun while preparing and serving meals safely.

Hassle-Free Family Dinners:
Family traditions have been created around food and meals, but why wait for a holiday or special event to celebrate a meal together? Eating dinner together on a regular basis doesn’t have to be a hassle; instead it can offer many healthy benefits to your family.

Fit Families Dine Together
Children look to those around them as role models, especially their family members. If they grow up in an active family that eats healthy; they are more likely to be active themselves. Daily activity is important for a healthy family, and it doesn’t have to be hard.

Reading Together Strengthens Families
Quality time spent reading in the home benefits both parents and children. Reading skills are used in all areas of life – from the time we wake up in the morning to the time we fall asleep at night. What better way to teach your children about life than by reading with them?

Family Day Flyers
An 8.5” by 11” flyer is available for posting that describes Family Day activities. You may also download “mini-flyers.” These small flyers more thoroughly describe the items listed above. By copying these flyers front and back and slicing them along the dotted line, you can create mini-pamphlets that can be stacked on counters or placed in areas for all to see and obtain.

These are just a few ideas to make family meals a time when parents and children can spend a small portion of their day together. This can be a special time, when all the worries of work and school can be set aside, and families can get closer in touch. A time when children and parents can learn to share their thoughts, feelings, goals, values, and expectations.

Please join us on September 25 to recognize “Family Day – a Day to Eat Dinner With Your Children.” Use that day and these ideas to help develop your own ideas and traditions. Family mealtime can be a time to get close as a family, so children and parents can help themselves to a happier and healthier life together.

Answer 11

get rid of the microwave and have a set time for eating. cook good fresh food .get the children involved in choosing and cooking the food

Answer 12

A good start would be to make sure the parents are home at a decent time. Usually one of them doesn't return from work until well after 7 which is a tad late for school children.
Breakfast these days is rushed as everyone has different deadlines , but it's probably the one meal that the family could eat together if they all rose earlier. Then the problem is grumpy kids who don't want to get out of bed or go to school.
Maybe a theme night once or twice a week when a different kind of food is dished up. If the children know that that is their exclusive time with their parents and they can discuss anything it may encourage them.
They love their opinion being sought over matters - makes them feel like adults. 'What do you think' is a question they love.
So, good discussion, good food and good time keeping on the part of everyone may go some way towards solving this growing problem.

Answer 13

I don't give my family a choice. Whoever is home at our house eats meals together(mostly supper because of work and school schedules). It's been a tradition in our family since before I can remember. We all sit at the dinner table and talk about how our day went and what's new in our lives. I like trying out new recipes so I make something every night,sometimes it's a hit and sometimes it's not. We live and learn. If we don't like it we don't keep the recipe.
A lot of people have lost the family ideals. Everyone kind of does there own thing anymore with kids having TVs in their rooms everyone goes their separate ways to watch their own programs just to keep the kids happy. I think this has to be taught to the children. If the parents don't teach them that this should be a priority they will never learn unless they marry someone that makes it a priority.
I really hope that my kids take this tradition into their own families when the time comes. It's a good way to keep in touch.

Answer 14

Turn the TV off, buy a table and some chairs. Don't let the kids out at tea time. Ask the kids what they want for dinner, (make sure it has plenty of veg) and say to them, "we are all eating at the table tonight, where I want to know exactly what trouble you have been getting up to. Then I'll tell you what I have been up to. And if you eat all your dinner up nicely then you can have pudding. Eat it all, and no do not swear, shout or fight."

Answer 15

Tom who?

Anyway, the government could make a set time where all tv's and things in the house like computers and lights don't work... Only the things in the kitchen are useable, then all the kids would have no choice but to sit in the kitchen and be made miserable eating with their boring families pretending to be happy...

Answer 16

It is tough when we work such long hours and children want their tea at 5pm! We make a point of always sitting to the table for Sunday lunch, breakfast if we are all around and sit with the children during their tea even if you are not eating at the same time. Just chat to them about their day. It is a really bonding thing to do as they will then go off and do their own thing.

Answer 17

We always eat as a family once a day.
I just put the food out, ring a bell and children appear from all directions, usually including at least one neighbour's child!

Answer 18

If Mums went to Iceland less and Dads shouted at their kids less.

Answer 19

I believe if the food smells good, and the kitchen or dining room table is set, the TV is off, the phone is off the hook, and the family knows at whatever time the dinner is ready, to be there, and make it a nightly ritual, unless there is a good esxuse not to be there.
Familys should eat together and have a conversation as a family.

Answer 20

Get parents to respect their kids whilst also disciplining them. Also the rule of eat together or bed without dinner would probably work.

Also take the damn TV's out of kids rooms which is very anti-social.

Answer 21

I dont think it's possible weekdays, people need to work late to make ends meet.

At weekends, maybe if the media focussed on eating together... Eastenders, the newspapers etc.... then people might realise it's "normal" or just do it becasue they follow the heard.

I dont think family mealtimes are a really neat idea in todays non nuclear-family climate... My family is 'not operative'... I try to eat along with my daughter when she is here (thats Breakfast and Lunch), or invite guests to join me for food in the evenings if thay are visiting when I am able to eat, even if just a quick snack.

I also try to arrange for my daughter and me to meet with friends who also have kid's at a local Cafe (The wonderfull Errols in Hatfield) on Sunday mornings for what is essentially an extended modern 'family' mealitme.

Main point.... Media coverage showing group eating as a norm.

Answer 22

serve good meals,,,,and tell the family what will be discussed before the meal is served.

Answer 23

quite a crap question, but lets see, chain the kids to the kitchen table, and make them eat there and then, if they are not in the required room at the required time, ground them for 7 months, and give them a good beating, it will encourage them to sit at the table as a family in future.

Answer 24

I don't know. We eat as a family every night and we sit at the table not around the t.v. It's good, we all get a chance to talk and share whatever has been going on in the day.

Answer 25

Turn off the TV. Get everyone to pitch in with the preparation. Don't just buy ready meals. Cooking is a learning process!

People think I'm weird because I don't answer the phone or the door at teatime. Do these people not eat? I think it's important to close off at teatime because otherwise you'll be up and down like a bride's nightie and your meal won't digest. And it'll be cold. And quite frankly, I'm too tired and hungry to be disturbed. Also, it's the only time of the day I get to see my daughter and interact with her, so as far as I'm concerned, anyone or anything else can just wait!

Source(s):

Don't come calling at dinner time, hahaha

Answer 26

just tell them to ban tv for one hour around dinner time.

Answer 27

with work schedules etc and the fact that my children are rarely at home as they are both over 18 its extremely difficult we manage it maybe twice a week sunday roast being the main one which we insist that we share and it is enjoyable for all of us when we actually sit down chat etc but during the week its very hard to actually be all together at one time we always try to diversify and have some thing that will please both our children but im afraid sometimes no matter what we do its more important for them to be out and about but we keep trying and do realise the importance of sharing meals this way

Answer 28

By having a parent, or parents, who value this idea themselves.

By having parents who enjoy time spent together across the table, who understand that discourse during mealtime, is the most valuable time to share.

By turning off the TV and all disconcerting background noise, by affording one another, the courtesy of 'undisturbed' time.

By making mealtime, the most important part to every day, and dare I say it? By letting children be the children, and parents be the parents, let mother cook and father carve and bring back the old fashioned family!

An old fashioned mum of six, now adults, who made it work that way!

Answer 29

Teach parents how to cook. If mealtimes are nothing but a microwaved ready-meal in front of the TV, then they are nothing special. If parents had the time and the skill to create meals and make an occasion of eating together, then perhaps people would eat together more often.

Answer 30

This is something you cannot force, that only causes resentment. At the moment, it seems, the only thing that can bring a family together to dine harmoniously is a television and some microwave meals. This is clearly not a perfect solution.
Restaurants too can appeal to most family members but this option is too expensive to keep it regular.

As I see it, the only people who want the family to spend time eating together is the parent(s.) Their offspring get older and want to fly the nest in search for independance and all the factors that make this difficult just makes them want it more. Sitting around a family dinner table imposes the status of the family hierarchy where the parents are in charge and the children have to follow the rules.

I do enjoy eating with my parents, more so now that I've flown the nest and don't see them so often. But too much of a good thing spoils it. Saving special moments like these for special occasions keeps them fresh and memorable.

Answer 31

.............first of all turn the TV off when dinner is ready, put all the tea trays in the rubbish bin, and lay the table, that should help