Done Right, Today's Casual Family Meals Are Nothing to Feel Guilty About
Published: May. 15, 2006
URBANA - Maybe your family doesn't look anything like Donna Reed's did when they sat down for dinner on your black-and-white TV.
Maybe you're eating takeout food around the table, maybe the TV's on in the background, maybe people even get up and move around from time to time. Certainly, if you're the mother, you're not wearing pearls. Does it matter?
"Mealtime may be the only time of day that families sit down together, make eye contact, and have extended conversations, so, yes, family mealtimes are important," agreed Angela Wiley and Reed Larson, co-presenters at this spring's Pampered Chef® Family Resiliency lecture at the University of Illinois and co-authors with Kathryn Branscomb of a book on family mealtimes.
"Even casual family meals can teach children values, help them develop healthy eating habits, improve their vocabularies, and lay a foundation for good mental health," noted Reed Larson, a U of I professor of family ecology.
Sound like a tall order? You're probably doing it already. As Wiley and Larson commented on film clips of today's families eating dinner together, they noted that:
*Conversation was informal, but parents often took pains to include the children in it.
*Families still gathered around the table, even if people got up from time to time to check on the whereabouts of a wayward teenager or grab a bottle of salad dressing from the refrigerator.
*Food was not the centerpiece of the meal; the family's interactions were.
*Parents probably didn't enforce the rules of etiquette as much their own parents had, yet a feeling of respect was often part of the meal's atmosphere.
No matter how relaxed and comfortable the setting, though, parents and older family members have to create a mealtime "structure" that promotes their children's growth and well-being. "Healthy families are structured and predictable without being rigid," said Larson.
"That structure will include opportunities for children to talk and ask questions, for parents to coax children to try a new vegetable, and to celebrate, coach, and encourage each other as the family talks about its successes and failures," Wiley said.
The tried and true structure of most evening meals has family members taking turns telling about their day. "This is so important in my family that my daughter once asked plaintively, when she was overlooked, 'Mommy, who will I tell my day to?'" said Wiley.
Mealtime is a terrific time for open communication and problem-solving, added Larson. "It's a time when a child can ask 'Why won't anybody play with me?', and parents and siblings can console and brainstorm solutions."
But family mealtimes have important implications for current national struggles as well as family intimacy. Turns out they're an important front in the fight against obesity and efforts to improve literacy.
"Americans' terrible eating habits start in childhood," said Larson. "And researchers tell us there's a definite correlation between family mealtimes and the number of servings of fruits and vegetables a child eats.
"Shared mealtimes may really pay off in the teenage years when 94 percent of U.S. adolescents have poor or inadequate nutrition. Research even shows that teens who participate in family mealtimes are much less likely to suffer from eating disorders, such as bulimia and anorexia," he said.
"Surprisingly, children may learn more language skills from participating in family mealtimes than they do from reading," Wiley noted. "Mealtime conversation provides diverse information that's personally relevant to kids so they listen and learn, picking up vocabulary.
"Although some believe the golden era of family meals has passed, today's family mealtimes in some ways allow richer opportunities for children's and adolescents' development," she said.
"In that 'golden era', many people thought that children should be seen and not heard. And women sometimes functioned more as cooks and waitresses than as true participants in the meal," said Wiley.
So a lot of things have changed since Donna Reed presided over her dining table. Other things haven't, though.
"Certainly the memories we make and the inside jokes we share at the family table continue to echo through the decades," said Larson.
Reed Larson holds The Pampered Chef® Endowed Chair in Family Resiliency.
This spring's lecture coincided with the opening of the new Doris Kelley Christopher Hall on the University of Illinois campus. Christopher Hall, the new home of The Pampered Chef® Family Resiliency Program was made possible by a gift from Doris and Jay Christopher.
In 2000, The Pampered Chef, Ltd., made a financial commitment to the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences in Urbana-Champaign to establish The Pampered Chef Family Resiliency Program. Directed by Professor Laurie Kramer, the program consists of a lecture series, faculty research grants, and graduate fellowships in the area of strengthening families.
That initial commitment has been extended through 2009, ensuring that the program will continue to support innovative research, education, and public engagement activities that hold potential for strengthening families with practical strategies to improve family life. -30-