Share The Table

Here are some guidelines and family dinner advice:

Eliminate television or electronic communication devices. Our brains are not designed for multitasking when we are trying to connect with one another. So reduce distractions by turning off the TV and not allowing cell phones or electronic games at the dinner table.

Avoid power struggles over food. Nutritionists say that no good is done, and sometimes there is harm, for parents to scold, bargain and threaten children over what they are not eating at dinner. It’s okay to remind children to keep eating (young ones forget what they are doing) and to encourage them to try new foods. But don’t turn food into a control struggle that you can’t win, and that turns the family meal into a battleground. Picky eaters do not starve or develop malnutrition, and they get more out of pleasant family time than out of the extra bites you force them to eat.

Try not to grill children for information. It’s fine to ask them what they did that day at school, but if they decline to answer fully, let it go. Trying to drag information out of children is as unproductive as trying to stuff information into them. (Sometimes children talk spontaneously later in the meal when the bellies are getting full and their blood sugar is up.) In the same way, don’t press your teenagers for information about their friends. “Did I see your friend Teresa smoking outside the mall today?” is likely to elicit a firm “no comment” – and some resentment about being asked to fink on a friend. A related mistake is to stop children in their tracks when they say something like hating math: inquiring about what’s wrong can be helpful but don’t use dinner for a lecture on the value of sustained effort in the face of boring tasks.

Discourage unnecessary conflict. Conflict undermines family dinners, and leads some families to stop having them. You can’t always control conflict between children (as when someone calls a sibling’s remarks stupid), but you can refrain from using the table as a time to challenge a child about bad grades or neglected chores. Save it for later; it can almost always wait.

Avoid extended adult talk that leaves kids out. It’s not that parents should never address each other at the table, but they should avoid leaving children clueless about the adult conversation for long stretches, say, of more than three minutes. The best family dinners involve going back and forth among all family members old enough to participate meaningfully in conversation.

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).