Modern Mom: The Family Dinner

It seems that nearly every day there’s another story in the media about the importance of the “family dinner.” We’re told that by eating together as a family, our children will perform better in school, stay off drugs, become more politically aware, get along better with their peers, and so on. Given that my family eats together at least 90 percent of the time, I’ve always thought I’ve done my duty on this front. If my children run into trouble later in life, it will not be because they ate dinner on the fly!

But lately I’m noticing that the time my kids spend at the aforementioned family dinner, is getting increasingly short. They eat much less and considerably faster than my husband and I, and they are therefore ready to be excused and go play within 10 minutes of sitting down. I’m not sure what to do about this. Do I make them stay at the table and watch them fidget and squirm, listen to them whine about being done? Or do I let them get up and go play, making good use of the short time they get to spend at home each weekday? And if the latter, will they suffer consequences later on? How long exactly does the family dinner need to take for the children to reap its benefits?