Share The Table

Start with examining your priorities. How important are family dinners in your vision of what kind of family you want to have? If they are a high priority, then promise yourself to make decisions that reflect that priority. Most competing activities (like work and children’s activities) will have an “advocate” in the family. If dinners are important to you, be an advocate for this priority.

Reduce or change outside activities that interfere with family dinners. Start with a child’s or adult’s activity that interferes the most with family dinners.

Start small if necessary. If you are not having regular family dinners at all, you might start with just one, say, on Sunday night when there are usually no outside activities. Then make it special – and start adding days from there.

Be flexible with dinnertimes. Aim for eating together as a family even if timing changes from day to day. For example if you give your kids a snack at 5 p.m. and then the whole family eats at 7:30 after swimming practice; your motto for today could be: success is eating together.

Eliminate television and other electronic media (except background music) from family dinners. Nothing distracts from the social purpose of meals more than people watching TV or text messaging. You might move the television from the area where you eat, or at least make sure it is turned off before you eat. And consider banning cell phones from the table.

Seize opportunities that create an opening for more family dinners. For example, find the bright side of your soccer-star daughter’s broken ankle and allow the family time to experience what it had been missing; relaxed dinners every night. Now that your family has come to enjoy these evenings for dinner, it will be easier to hold on to some of them after she heals.

Persevere. You have to be committed to the change. If your children let you know they think that having regular dinners is inconvenient and boring, resist the temptation to cave in before the payoff. One high school principal said that when his wife developed serious cancer, they decided to prioritize family life, and to start with recovering their family dinners. The three busy teenaged girls resisted for at least six weeks by not being pleasant during dinner, but eventually settled in and became fans of regular family dinners. Restoring a family culture of eating together often requires perseverance from parents.

Explain your values about family meals to your children. Enduring changes have to be based on your values about family life, so when you discuss changes in family dinners with your children, make sure you stress the values behind your decision. Stress that this is not a power move, but a rebalancing, and acknowledge children’s feelings of loss or anger if they have to give up some activity or can’t text message as they have been allowed to in the past. Be a leader with values and vision.

These ideas are adapted from The Intentional Family by William J. Doherty (Avon Books, 1999) and Putting Family First by William J. Doherty and Barbara Z. Carlson (Henry Holt, 2002).