Dinner's Ready!!

Today I am going to talk about the importance of family dinner so I thought it appropriate to put one of my favorite Family Dinner clips up.. Enjoy!



I found an article on

Healthline.

by Dr. Nancy L. Brown about the importance of Family Dinner and thought it was necessary to write about it. I decided after reading this article that I should post some ideas on how to make family dinner fun and something that you look forward to each day.

Erica's ten tips for making Family Dinner a blast!

• Have a theme! Eat dinner around the table and finish up with family movie night and keep the theme rolling. Watch "Lady and the Tramp" with Pasta and "Chicken Little" with a chicken dinner (okay that one may be a bit disturbing) and pancakes for dinner on "Elf" night. The kids will love it and will it build excitement for the next themed dinner. Don't be afraid to do more than just the movie: Speak in accents, wear costumes, and even be characters. Anything that is fun to do makes your family closer
• Have your children/spouse help prepare the meal. Anything that you invest in is always a bit more rewarding. Have each person have a task and something that they can add to the meal. Have little kids set the table or do bread service and older kids can do side dishes or be the waiter!
• Set the mood: Always make sure all distractions are taken away from at least one hour to have dinner. This means silence cell phones, turn off the tv, and make sure pets are fed or have gone outside. This is family time and distractions speak no investment.
• Due to schedule conflicts and busy days this is something that probably can't happen every day. If it can, great...if not, set aside a day of the week that everyone is at the table for a meal. If you can't do dinner, make it breakfast or lunch. Whatever works for your family and creates consistency is going to help you bond.
• If cooking isn't your thing, that is okay! If you would rather have a night out for dinner that works too. Order pizza from your favorite Pizzeria and take the stress out of preparing or go to a restaurant that you all love and enjoy while having family time. Just make sure this restaurant isn't too noisy to enjoy your family and talk.
• Have some sort of tradition at your dinners. This is covered in the article I read about praying before meals and that is certainly a tradition in my home but adding a bit more to this, what about asking everyone what their biggest blessing of their day was and the biggest challenge or something they have learned that day.
• Designate a "family member of the day" and let that person be special for that particular dinner. For example, let them pick the meal, dessert, etc.. and have everyone at the table go around and genuinely compliment the person of the day. This can help with sibling rivalry as it gives a socially acceptable chance to actually admit you like your little sister. :)
• Let each family create a rule for family dinner time. Examples might be "No topic is out of bounds" or "Cell phones must be put in another room on silent before dinner."
• Make a game out of clean up: Watch your kids for appropriate dinner behavior including opening up, sharing, being positive, affirming other family members, and proper manners and allow them off of clean up duty if they do great! Have those family members that are not off duty have designated tasks so that clean up is not overwhelming.
• Parents: Use this time to model love and compassion to your spouse. Thank your husband/wife for passing the potatoes, hold hands across the table, and pull out chairs husbands. This models for your sons/daughters how compassion and love looks and helps them sort out respect and honor for their future husbands/wives. We learn most by what we see, not what we hear!

I hope you all institute at least one family meal a week and get creative and enjoy it. Especially with the holidays right around the corner. Enjoy each other!