How can we encourage families to spend more time eating together?

Question

This is the real Tom Aiken. For further details check out this blog post:
http://uk.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-qT1KKPQoRKdVT4lowpJCljbFokkuIzI8

Answer 1

1. Set a specific time for eating each day, when everyone is at home.

2. Get everyone involved in the cooking process. For example, small children can make dessert, older children can look up recipes, while the parents make the main meal and help the younger ones.

3. Decide what meal will be eaten that day quite early on so that there is time to delegate tasks and to prepare some foods in advance, particularly if it's a busy day and there's less time to eat together.

4. Decide upon foods everyone likes, or foods that no one has tried before in order to add variation and entice people to the table. For example, fajitas are well liked by loads of people because you can stuff them with anything, so there can be a variety and everyone will eat something. Shepherds pie is another example, I know someone who puts baked beans in theirs and it still tastes good. Seafood risotto, roasted artichoke with dips, an exotic fruit salad (dragonfruit, starfruit, pineapple, papaya, lychee, etc) or even a home made Chinese are all examples of foods rarely attempted at home.

5. Get families to spice up what they eat. Eat less chips, in fact don't even stock them, and try new things. Instead of rice, use cous cous, or on a salad, add some croutons. Buy a bottle of salad dressing and give it a whirl. Don't just go to Tesco or Sainsbury for food and don't buy the same junk two weeks running. Try farmers markets for food or a butchers for something with more meat and less fat on.

In essence, families need to find time for each other and step away from the mundane.

Answer 2

By going back to the old values, have a table set for dinner, give a time that the family can and will sit and enjoy a meal together. share in making the meal and in laying the table. Turn off the Television, Computer, and all these things that distract inc. the phones, music, news, etc. We all live in our own selfish world of gadgets. Take time to enjoy each other with a meal and talk of what has happened today to every body, from the smallest to the largest of the family. IE age youngest first and everyone has to say something, and the rest just listen without comment, after the last has said his or her day. then all can comment on the day. That is the only way we will learn about each other, who knows we might even get to like each other, and grow to love.
My wife and I take time for each other every evening. and at least twice a week have a good meal we both prepare. and switch off everything, except the lights if needed, and ask friends over once a month and the same rule applies no phones. We and they just love it, and when the greater family is together a meal can last for hours, since we have to travel 700 plus kilometres and the others up to 100. We enjoy talking, not even in the same language, English and German is mixed. But the love is Universal

Answer 3

In today's society no matter how hard we work and socialise we have families and it is important to maintain something that is shared together and feeding time is great, no matter you hours of work or school hours or social hours you need to set aside this time and make the most of it, all family is to attend and even help with the prep and the cooking and the organising of the table etc, even little participation give quality time together to talk, laugh and be a family. Even if its once a week it helps.
I find that some weeks it is hard for everyone to be together at the same time to eat so sometimes we will say ok Friday we will have a late dinner together and we will all decide on what to have from the starter the main and pudding, and make it like we are out to dinner in a restaurant having a three course meal.
Or sometimes I will say OK Sunday everyone is to be home at a time and I will do the traditional Sunday roast and we are all together, if this fails I will suggest a day in the week that I will do the roast and all are there together.
We need to be more in touch with our families as society is bad enough as it is.

Answer 4

Two points, first I don't know who 'the real Tom Aiken' is, and second, shouldn't you ask how we can encourage families to spend less time eating together? Aren't we in the UK now the most obese nation in Europe? It's not the time it takes to eat the meal, it's what the meal consists of. A few shared healthy snacks a day have got to be better for you that sitting at the table stuffing away for an hour or more at breakfast and dinner. Good question, but rather bad timing with the above news about obesity having just been released.

Answer 5

Obviously, this is very difficult. People are now working longer hours and more often than not both parents work. Children need to eat earlier than adults and they go to bed earlier. The easiest thing to do would be to encourage families to have dinner together on a Saturday or have Sunday lunch together. To eat together everyday is not really feasible now. Children have far more after school activites. I think there is a lot of pressure on parents to cook from scratch every night and then to dish up delicious, nutritious food to their happy Walton like family. Life just isn't like that. Sometimes by the time I come home from work I am shattered. If I waited until 8pm to feed my children they would be moaning about how starving they are. Once a week we might have a takeaway when we all eat together - this takes the pressure off and means that we get to spend quality time together. I don't see the harm in this once a week. We also eat together at weekends. I think this is the most we can hope for in today's busy society.

Answer 6

The trick, I believe, is to make meal time fun, but also part of the routine. Children and partners should be encouraged to help out in the kitchen, so that they can feel as though they are contributing - peel spuds, mix dough, etc.

Turn the TV OFF. If you want to get the family around the table, build sitting down, as a family, into your daily routine. The TV is a distraction, as are toys and games, so if possible, take yourself out of the living room - Dinning room, or kitchen dinner. A place where everybody knows that is especially set asside for eating.

Kill the ready meals. Where is the fun in preparing and eating that rubbish? If you are busy during the week, fine. Have a baking session on Sunday. Get the kids to help. Freeze and re-heat at will (At least you will know what goes into it).

However, as ideal as this sounds there may be a bit of a problem. Most parents do not know how to cook. It is becoming a lost art and a great many family recipies are going down the drain. Cookery should be re-introduced at school - for BOTH sexes.

Cookery road shows - Especially to companies and trading estates - (Get the companies envolved with healthy work force slogans etc.) In this way you can demonstrate quick easy food to working families.

Alex

Answer 7

The practise of a family eating together should evolve from the outset of a couple meeting and living together - long before any children come on the scene. We would all agree at that stage of simple family life it is quite natural for the couple to almost always eat their meals together. Later when the children come along the system is often aloud to break down for the convenience of the individual family members - for so many different distractions not least of all television programmes, games machines and of course computers -, particularly the 'Internet' Unfortunately in this modern age it would be almost impossible to continue in that cosy comfortable homely way. Life is now too fast and although such a shame, we all need to keep up with the pace of modern living. It would be wonderful if only we could carry on as we did in the beginning !
In the main if the Family are close, supportive and loving to each other,- particularly with special respect for the parents, there should be no real problems.
Although a Family eating together is all very well and sounds idyllic, it is the love and support of each other that solves all the wrongs there may be ! Fortunately I believe the majority of the families in this world do love, care and support each one another.

Answer 8

I think the question is somewhat naive - a lot of families don't do ANYTHING together, never mind sit down and eat a meal together. Poverty, unemployment, depression, poor parenting skills, substance abuse all effect how families interract and a certain percentage of parents care more about where their next fix/drink is coming from than putting food on their child's plate.

Family meals are important but I think these things should be prioritised and when some children don't even get fed from one day to the next, it makes you realise what is actually important in the scheme of things.

This said, the only way to encourage families to eat together is to make it part of the routine, something normal, everyday - not just for Christmas and special occassions. It does have to be said that things change and with more parents working longer hours, perhaps families are simply unable to schedule 'tradiitonal' mealtimes anymore - a sad indication of how far society has sunk!

Answer 9

I suspect by gathering statistics on the family lives of kids who end up in juvenile court, perhaps also drug rehab centers, and how often they came from homes where the parents and kids rarely saw each other, rarely sat down to dinner together and had a pleasant meal, exchanging conversation and the news of the day, and getting important values inculcated.

In addition to all the important social and moral values, this is important to good eating habits, too. Various problems regarding refusing to eat, or eating too much or the wrong kinds of things, will show up here. Then a quiet word to the child privately (no more than a frown and subtle shake of the head at the dinner table) will do much to improve habits before they can cause too much damage.

Another benefit, more subtle perhaps but not less important, is the teaching of good manners. Not just the details of what fork to use, but the whole idea of making social interaction a pleasant and gracious thing instead of a trial. Kids who grow up with good manners have such an enormous advantage over those that do not when it comes time to enter the world of business and professions.

Answer 10

FIRST MAKE TIME.

Sit down together to plan meals and shopping lists. Everyone has a say.

Parcel out responsibilities for the food from buying to cooking to cleaning up & dish washing. A communal effort is the best here, helps everyone feel involved, nobody feel left out. And family members who are free when others aren't can contribute to the cause in their own time.

When possible, sit down together at the dinner table - the pleasant, decorated, appetizing dinner table. It doesn't have to be formal but the idea is to frame the experience as being positive and enjoyable.

Decide on what the budget allows and - once a week/month/whenever - go to a new restaurant for a fine night out. It doesn't have to be fancy, or structured. But you want everyone to experience something new, or different, and give a night out to the chef(s). In the summer, make it a picnic - again, somewhere of interest.


AND a very important rule: NOBODY brings negatives to the table. NO arguments; NO pressure over money, homework, (un)acceptable friends, etc. Nothing ruins appetite and digestion as quickly and thoroughly as any of those interdicted topic!


When my elder daughter was in secondary school she had an assignment that required the planning & execution of a meal. She did everything, including making a booklet about the experience, highlighted by pictures and punctuated by the post-prandial mess in the sink. It was one of the best meals we enjoyed, bar none.]