Family dinner. The words conjure up images of happy families gathered around a table, sharing food and laughter. Many of us grew up hearing about the importance of family dinner, perhaps even with the slightly exaggerated warning that skipping it could lead our children down the wrong path. But in today’s busy world, is family dinner truly essential, especially with young children who eat early and demanding work schedules?
One colleague of mine, years before I navigated parenthood, was a firm believer in the sanctity of family dinner. “You have to have family dinner,” he insisted, only half-joking, “Otherwise, your children will turn out to be serial killers.” While the serial killer part was hyperbole, his conviction about the importance of family dinner was palpable. He, like many, saw it as a key ingredient for raising successful children.
My own upbringing mirrored this belief. Family dinner at 6 p.m. was non-negotiable. I carried this tradition into my own family. However, as my children grew older, maintaining this nightly ritual became increasingly challenging. Just this week, we’re missing three family dinners due to after-school activities. Even with younger children, the struggle is real. Early bedtimes clash with work hours, toddlers are notoriously restless at the table, and the pressure to make it perfect can be stressful.
family sitting around a dining table for a dinner
A family enjoys dinner together at their dining table, fostering connection and communication.
So, is family dinner as crucial as some make it out to be? What does the research actually say? And how can families realistically make dinner work for them without added stress?
The Data Behind Family Dinner
A wealth of research points to a strong link between regular family meals and positive outcomes for children, particularly older kids and adolescents. A landmark study from 2006 surveyed a massive sample of 100,000 students in grades 6 through 12. This study explored the frequency of family dinners in relation to a wide range of behaviors and well-being indicators.
The findings were striking. Kids who ate more family dinners exhibited better results across nearly every measured metric. This included lower rates of alcohol and tobacco use, reduced likelihood of early sexual activity, decreased suicide risk, fewer behavioral problems at school, greater motivation for academic achievement, increased school engagement, and fewer instances of eating disorders, among other benefits.
However, it’s crucial to acknowledge a significant limitation: correlation does not equal causation. Families who prioritize family dinners often differ in many other ways from those who don’t. When researchers accounted for these other family differences, the strength of the link between family dinners and positive outcomes diminished, although the trend remained.
This pattern of consistent positive associations coupled with unclear causality is a recurring theme in numerous studies and reviews on the topic, as highlighted in this review. The research is compelling in its consistent findings, yet less conclusive in definitively proving that family dinners cause these positive outcomes.
The Challenge of Proving Causation
Establishing a causal relationship – demonstrating that family dinners directly cause better outcomes – requires isolating family meals as the primary variable. Ideally, this would involve some kind of random variation in whether families have dinner together. While a randomized controlled trial would be the gold standard, it’s incredibly difficult to implement in real-life family settings.
The challenge lies in the fact that the decision to consistently have family meals is deeply intertwined with a family’s values, priorities, schedules, and resources. It’s not a choice made in isolation. In fact, even attempts at intervention studies struggle to isolate family dinner as a variable. One such trial aimed to improve food-related behaviors in low-income families. While it saw some success in influencing food choices, it failed to significantly impact the frequency of family dinners.
This isn’t to say the study disproved the benefits of family dinner. Rather, it highlights the difficulty in even getting families to change their dinner routines, underscoring how deeply ingrained these habits are.
Ultimately, separating family dinners from the broader context of a family’s demographics, circumstances, and preferences seems almost impossible. Finding definitive proof of a direct causal link remains an elusive goal.
Reconsidering the “Why” Behind Family Dinner
Perhaps the focus shouldn’t solely be on proving causation, but rather on understanding why family dinners might be beneficial and exploring alternative ways to achieve similar outcomes.
Two key factors, often subtly linked to family dinners, deserve closer attention:
Firstly, extensive evidence underscores the importance of parental involvement in children’s lives. While over-parenting can be detrimental, consistent parental engagement is crucial for a child’s well-being. For instance, family support plays a significant role in a child’s resilience to bullying, providing a stable and accepting environment. Even as teenagers become more independent, they still need consistent connection with their parents. Family dinner can be a reliable, albeit not the only, way to ensure this connection.
Secondly, childhood is a critical period for shaping food preferences. Children are more receptive to trying new foods and developing healthy eating habits than adults. Family meals offer a valuable opportunity to expose children to a variety of foods and cultivate a positive relationship with eating.
In my view, if family dinners do have a causal impact, it’s likely because they serve as a vehicle for these two crucial elements: consistent family connection and positive food experiences. Sharing a meal together ensures dedicated time for interaction and provides a platform for exposing children to diverse foods and the enjoyment of eating.
However, family dinner isn’t the only way to achieve these goals. Focused connection time can happen later in the evening, during car rides, or on weekends. Food exploration can occur through various meals and snacks, not just dinner.
This is where the principles discussed in The Family Firm become relevant. If you want to prioritize focused time with your children, especially as they get older and busier, you need to proactively schedule it. If dinner doesn’t work, find another time and make it a recurring event. Let your children know to expect this dedicated time, even if they initially resist.
For my family, dinner works well as this connection point due to our work schedules and how we’ve structured our children’s activities. But what works for one family may not work for another. And that’s a core message of ParentData: finding what works for you.
Dinner for Family: The Bottom Line
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Correlation, Not Necessarily Causation: There’s a strong correlation between family meals and positive outcomes for children, particularly adolescents. However, it’s difficult to definitively prove that family dinners cause these outcomes due to various other factors influencing family dynamics.
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Focus on Connection and Food: If family dinners are beneficial, it’s likely because they provide dedicated family time, foster connection, and offer opportunities for positive food experiences and education.
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Flexibility is Key: Prioritizing focused family time is valuable, but it doesn’t have to be exclusively during dinner. Find what works best for your family’s schedule and needs, whether it’s breakfast, weekend lunches, or dedicated evening time for conversation and connection. The goal is to create consistent opportunities for family engagement and positive interactions around food, in whatever form that takes for your family.
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cstewart719
4 months ago
When I was in middle and high school, family dinners also became harder and harder for us. My mom switched it and we had family breakfast together every morning before school. Now that I’m a mom, I realize what an effort she made for us to have a hot breakfast most days (some days it was a choice of cereal).
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Curiousdad
9 months ago
This is extremely important to us for numerous reasons. Parents shouldn’t kill themselves over it though. Dinner time (yes even with a 2 year old) is an invaluable opportunity to have dedicated time as a family. It also improves their eating habits (we all try what is on our plates) as well as table manners for eating out at restaurants. Our kid is flat out the best eater of all his friends and has the best manners and attention span at a table- the only differentiator is we sit down together every single night. Is it work – yes. Is it worth it – yes.
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CfgS
9 months ago
This is my “willing to die on this hill” subject. Seated family dinners are not the be all and end all and there are much more important aspects that contribute to your child’s development. I feel like this idea that all children of all ages must sit with their parents at meal times is just universally accepted as crucial when in reality it is completely situational. Eating together at meals times will not save an otherwise toxic upbringing, equally a thriving child’s success is not dependable on if they sat at a table and said their favourite part of the day. I wish there was more discourse on this but it seems to be stuck in this good/bad parenting dichotomy that most other aspects of parenting have moved past.
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Jennifer
9 months ago
Just want to suggest reading Jenny Rosenstrach’s book Dinner: A Love Story! It’s based on her blog, but given the poster’s question, I suggest the book! It’s a really fun read, and will make you feel better about family dinner at different stages of child-raising. It’s also a cookbook but I enjoyed the memoir parts the most.
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