Do you eat dinner as a family?
By Kristin Penner
Making meals at home is a great way to save money and spend quality time as a family. Over the year’s family meal times have decreased. This is mostly due to schedule conflicts. Making time for family meals is beneficial to parents and children alike. Children who eat meals as a family have improved food habits. They tend to eat more fruits and vegetables and less fried food and sodas.
Meal times are also a great time to connect with your family members and see how things are going for them. A few tips in helping make family meal times the most successful are: Turn the TV off, Fix the meals together- make it fun, let everyone have a turn in talking about their day, keep the meal pleasant, don’t make this a time of punishment, and make sure it is a priority for everyone to be at the table.
If family meals are not something your family is used to, start by making a commitment as a family of days of the week you will prepare a home cooked meal and eat together. The results you will see will eventually lead the family to make this a consistent habit.
