Why you should try for more family meals at home?

When was the last time your family had a meal together? I don't mean sitting in the car munching on burgers from the drive-through. I mean sitting down at the table and sharing a home-cooked meal. (Family dinners are truly a challenge in my home, as my husband is generally working at dinner time. Many times for us it's lunch or breakfast that becomes our "family" meal)

If you can't remember when you last enjoyed a family meal, make plans to have them more often. Experts have found - and continue to discover - plenty of benefits for both children and adults when families have meals together at least three times a week.

I know...I know, it's not always easy, so
click here if you need help with meal planning and grocery shopping.

Here are 10 reasons why you should have family meals more
often:

Good For The Body

1. When families eat together, everyone tends to eat healthier. People who have frequent family meals consume more calcium, fiber, iron, and vitamins B6, B12, C and E. It could be because home-cooked meals are healthier than fast food and restaurant meals. (Source: Archives of Family Medicine)

2. Children tend to eat more fruits and vegetables when they frequently have dinner with their families. They also tend to eat fewer snack foods. (Source: American Dietetic Association)

3. Children in families who eat dinner together are less likely to be overweight (Source: Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine). This makes sense, given the findings in #1 and #2 above.

Good For The Brain

4. Children from families who eat meals together get better grades than their peers who don't have lots of family meal times (Source: Lou Harris-Reader's Digest National Poll). So family dinners are not only good for the body; they're also good for the brain.

5. When families eat together frequently, children have better language skills compared to kids from families who don't have family mealtimes often. (Source: Harvard University)

Good For Emotional Health

6. Children of families who eat together report feeling happier and are more optimistic about the future, than their peers who have infrequent family meals. (Source: Lou Harris- Reader's Digest National Poll)

7. Teenagers are less likely to use drugs, smoke, and drink alcoholic drinks, when their families eat together regularly. (Source: Columbia University)

8. It may come as a surprise, but among Moms who work outside the home, those who have family mealtimes reported feeling less stress than those who had family dinners less often. (Source: Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal)

9. The more often teen girls had meals with their families, the less likely they were to have symptoms of depression and suicidal behaviors. (Source: University of Minnesota)

Good for Family Bonding

10. Eating together gives family members the chance to communicate and build relationships, something that both adults and children appreciate very much. (Source: Nutrition Education Network of Washington & Oprah Winfrey's "Family Dinner Experiment")

I hope these reasons motivate you and your family to try and eat together more often. We're all busy - even children have plenty of after-school activities. But as the list above shows, family meals are worth every effort we put into them.
It helps to plan ahead so that we're not scrambling to get dinner ready or panicking because we don't have all the ingredients we need.

To make it easier to get the family around the table with a home-cooked meal, check out Dine Without Whine's menu planning service. It cost just a penny to try it out!

Selfless Ness

I am a very selfless person, sometimes a fault. But it's what works for me.

Selflessly Serving Your Family

When someone begins a family, they start to learn a lot about themselves and the world. Being a good family member requires absolute selflessness as you put the needs of your children and spouse ahead of your own. It is a painful transition for many, as evidenced by divorce rates, depression rates, and bolts in the night. But if you truly want the best for your family, you will learn to put your own needs to the side. There are many different ways that you can selflessly serve your family, and you should try to excel in all of them. When your kids grow up to be successful and healthy individuals, you will know that all of your effort was worth it.

First of all you need to recognize the idealistic differences between you and your spouse. Do you feel the need to have everything extremely clean all of the time while your spouse doesn’t mind living in a pigsty? That is fine. It may cause some of the trouble in your marriage, but you will eventually learn to deal with it. The best way to do it is to clean things up on your own, without grumbling or pointing out the faults of your spouse. If he or she mentions it, just say something along the lines of “oh, I just prefer it like this, don’t worry about it”. This kind of reaction from you will hopefully get your spouse to start keeping things tidy, the way you like them. If not, just continue to do it yourself without being bitter about it.

Next you need to give your spouse and your children the time that they deserve. It is easy for a working adult to get caught up in a cycle of working and relaxing, without setting aside time for persistent family time. Eat dinner with your family and force interactions, even if you are not feeling up to it. Sometimes it takes a lot of willpower to forget the stresses of work and to simply enjoy the presence of your kids. But once you get used to doing it, you will start to enjoy it more and more and your kids will certainly be better off since you are interactive and involved.

You should also try to create a good attitude in your children. Teach them your own ideals. If you selflessly clean up after your spouse, teach your children that this is the way to maintain a good relationship. Teach them that sacrifice is important. By spending this time and effort to cultivate the personalities of your children, you are improving their futures and most likely creating a smoother family life for the short term. There are no ways that a good personality can create family problems, so do your best to teach your children to be agreeable and pleasant.

It can be hard to focus on all of the different points of family life at the same time. But just take things one day at a time, and one step at a time. Starting today, spend a few hours with your family, chatting and getting to know each other better. When you grow old and you look back on your memories with your family, you will be full of pleasant memories and you will have no regrets.

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