
An interesting thing happened today and it really highlighted what our kids get out of us eating together as a family every evening and why we eat as a family. ‘Dad’ wasn’t home as he’d very unusually got stuck in a meeting and couldn’t get home in time. The 4 year old got stuck straight in to his meal but the 8 and 6 year old wanted to talk to him but he wasn’t there:
‘Where’s Dad?’
‘I wonder if he’s had a nice day.’
‘Can you tell Dad about my recorder recital today Mum?
‘Is Dad taking us to school in the morning or you Mum?’
My husband and I are both so busy but this is the one part of the day that we are 100% focussed on the kids and they love it.
The five of us have eaten together for years now. It’s the way my husband and I grew up and so it seemed natural for us to try and make it work. I loved those times. It really made me feel part of a family. It was a constant and it was the time when no-one was too busy or preoccupied to answer my questions and listen to my worries. I felt I could tell my Mum and Dad things they probably wouldn’t have heard otherwise as they were both so so busy. We would thrash out things that were bothering me and I would go to school the next day with a plan of what to say to the bullies if (when) they targeted me again.
It made me feel safe and reassured. It made me feel loved and wanted. It made me feel part of a tribe, like I belonged.
Unbeknown to me, I was also learning how to discuss things, how to agree to disagree, how to converse in groups, how to chat about all sorts of topics: ones that I was interested in and others not so much.
We are really lucky we can do this with our kids. My husband works in the evenings to make up for finishing work early. I’m with the kids from the end of the school day and on non-nursery days so I get much more time with them in the week. This way he gets to see them, we can all chat as a family AND I don’t need to cook another meal in the evening. BONUS!
We all help to lay the table and as soon as we sit down the focus is on each other. The kids are too busy discussing all the random topics we seem to cover to be too worried about what’s going in their mouths. I’m the cook so I always cook what we as adults would fancy eating and by default the kids are fine with it too. There is of course the odd thing that they really don’t like (true for everyone) plus we have infuriating food intolerances but there’s so much we can eat and they just get on with it. It’s either that or nothing in this house!
Now I think about it, our children’s friends always choose to stay for tea, even the ones that know they don’t like the meal / can’t bear to try it. I tell them what we’re having and they’re welcome to stay or not. Two particularly fussy children always choose to stay, they eat nothing but always seem to really enjoy the conversation.
Things we might natter about:
- Everyone’s news of the day.
- Things they did well / things that made them feel sad.
- If you set up a website on snail care (they’re obsess with garden snails at the moment), what could you include on it. What do you think people would be interested in knowing about snails?
- What shall I say to so and so when they’re mean to me again?
- Some people can’t afford to eat proper meals every day – what do you think about that?
- Why are some people homeless and what’s the best way to help them?
- Why do people have operations to change the way they look?
- Things we’d like to do in the future.
- Things we’d like to make.
- About drugs, periods and all the other ‘biggies’.
- How would it affect us if we only had one leg like the man at the swimming pool.
- What are stars actually?
- Did I tell you about when I rode an ostrich?
..and so on…honestly, we all just go on and on and everyone is desperate to say what they want to say and we laugh! It’s just like going out for a meal together except that it happens to be in our kitchen and we get to do it every day! The kids also learn table manners through modelling. We still have to remind them but as least they can see what they’re aiming for.
That’s why we eat as a family …
I really do know that even if they wanted to, not all families can eat together and what’s right for us isn’t right for everyone. Please do consider making it work if you can though – family meals are such wonderful things.
Do you eat as a family or do you have a different set up that works really well?.
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Completely agree, I would have happily always eaten in front of the TV but now I have a family of my own I see the importance of meal times and we always eat together. Thank you for linking up #bigfatlinky
I agree – there’s also something really lovely about eating in front of the TV!