For eating as a family

[Joskar]

I was listening to The Food Programme and it was an episode from October about eating as a family. Apparently this is very unusual these days. They reckoned that it was leading to poor mental health in young people (particularly girls) and that most families don't eat together anymore but when they do they have the TV on. Is that true do you think? I thought eating together was the norm.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b099w3v4

Tell you what I hate though families that have taken the trouble to go out for a meal together and the parents and older ones are on their phones abs the kids on screens.

Not in our family.

I started a thread recently about this because we'd just 'enjoyed' a particularly torturous family meal with 7yo ds and 15mo dd. But some time and reflection has calmed me down.

We don't sit down every day with the dc. We both work ft and so our dc tend to eat at school or their cm and we're just not ready to eat at 5.30 (dh is usually commuting home at that time and gets home closer to 6).

So I introduced a rule that we'd try to sit down as a family more at weekends - and that we'd try for home cooked Sunday dinner. We do this, and believe it's good for us all, but I'm no longer so prescriptive. So we now eat as family at the weekend as much as possible, when the kids are having a good day, if we're relaxed, if we're out to eat etc and it can be breakfast, lunch or dinner depending on where we are and how we're feeling. I don't want to turn mealtimes into anxious times where we complain about their table manners and tear our hair out. The new regime suits us much better, the kids are usually on great form and so are we. And much of the time dh and I don't even have to cook!

There’s only me and 11yo ds, but we always eat our evening meal at the kitchen table, no phones or tv. To me, it’s an important time to catch up on the day without distractions. I was brought up eating together in the evening though, so it’s the norm for me.

Maybe when the dc are much older and can wait until 7 to eat, but I have no idea how old dc are when they can hang on until then

Mine are 2 and 4 and while we try to get dinner on the table by 6.30, they are fine if it's 7.

I eat with my eldest son aged 4 but with my husband working late and The youngest needing help eating it’s just not possible. When my six month old can feed himself he will eat with us at the same time but apart from a Sunday we don’t eat as a family, I assumed in this day and age that was more ‘normal’

It depends on age and family circumstances, surely?

We hardly ate together unless making a concerted effort to do so - it didn't spontaneously happen. There'd always be someone still at work or at an after school club/activity or whatever.

Eating all together was usually if we went out. Other than that everyone pretty much just raided the fridge or the cupboards at their own pleasure.

But I don't think that families that do so are weird. It's more common when the dcs are little I think. When everyone got to 9/10 yrs old then it was each to their own at mine .

I eat with my ds (aged 2) at 5pmish but his bedtime is at 7pm and dh gets home after this so it's impossible. Maybe when he's older it might be easier for us.

This sort of thing always makes me have a hollow laugh. We ate together when I was a child and the rules of the table were "sit up, eat up and shut up."

Eating together is imbued with the quality of family life life as whole. If you have a warm, nurturing family, your dinnertime will be similar. My home life was emotionally and physically abusive, and the tension of not being able to escape during mealtimes gave me a multitude of eating problems.

I have 15 month old twins who eat lunch at 11:30/12 and evening meal at 4:30/5 so we can't eat together during the week.

I can't delay their food by much as they go to bed at 7.

At a weekend I like to try and have us eat together as a family and that is the plan for the future- but as others have said I think that general quality time together is also important.

@GhettoFabulous the presenter of the programme raised this point actually. Her own memories of family meals were fairly horrendous.

They agreed that the experience had to be good not bad but one of the contributors was adamant that the "good" family meal was key to a positive relationship with your kids/parents. It was Steve Biddulph actually. I think he's the Raising Boys guy. Is he trustworthy do you think? Is this just more of the sounds like a good thing or is there a real basis for it?

We eat together because it's convenient. I went through a phase of exhausting myself making kid meals and adult meals and I'm dammed if I'm doing that again. Is that the reality when they're teens? Or do they see to themselves?

I have teens, we all eat together now.

However, until a few years ago that just wasn't possible due to work. If both parents work, and kids have activities in the evening, it is not always possible!

I don't like eating on the sofa, as there is always a blob of ketchup or some gravy dripping of plates!

It is nice to eat a proper meal together, but it requires one parent to be at home around 5 to cook it. So not realistic for everyone.

We rarely eat as a family together- and we are all happy.

I try to get us sitting at the table for family meals as much as possible. Kids are mid teens and I feel they share more with us, if I manage to coax them out of their pits and off their gadgets.

Doesn't always work at this age though as they are often out.

We do eat late though - sometimes 8/9ish, which you can't obv do with young children.

WE eat together most nights - might only be 20 mins but that’s more than some. Obviously if one of us has an arrangement they’re not in, but the other parent usually is.

I agree with My home life was emotionally and physically abusive, and the tension of not being able to escape during mealtimes gave me a multitude of eating problems.

I dreaded sit down mealtimes as a child.
I was a naturally thin child and my mother bullied me into eating more than I was comfortable with.
I was forced to finish my plate.
When I was 9 years old I discovered I could cram down food and then visit the loo where I could vomit it all up again.
I never considered myself anorexic, in fact I hated my skinny arms and legs.
This cycle continued into my teens, and even in my 20s I would feel sick if I had to eat in a stressful situation.
Going out to a restaurant with a new boyfriend for instance, I could eat the meal but lost count of the number of meals that ended up in the restaurant toilet. I simply couldn't keep the food down, the feeling to vomit was overwhelming.
I have recovered now, but just an example how sit down family meals are not always to everyone's benefit.

Depends on the family, the parents, the kids.

I think it is absolute piffle and quite disturbing that it is being promoted as a cause for mental health problems. Are they serious?

We eat together at the kitchen table every dinner time and on weekends. We have a no screens rule and everyone has decent manners. We just have a good chat about our day and a laugh.

TinklyLittleLaugh nice, but not always possible.

We eat as a family when dh is off. However that is only 2 nights out of 7. He doesn't get home from work until 11-11.30pm, so it's impossible for us to eat as a family when he's working.
However there is never any tv on during mealtimes (I hate that), and ds always sits at the table to eat. So it's not too bad.

DS is 23m, we also aim for 6.30-6.45 but occasionally eat at 7.

We either all eat at the dining table or with me and DH on the sofa using the coffee table and DS using his little chair (DS has outgrown his booster chair but is quite fidgety on a normal dining chair.)

It’s the only family time we all get in the week (DH is rushing about getting ready in the mornings, then after dinner someone tidies up while the other does bath time)

Not during the week no. It just doesn't work. I'm a childminder and the kids all eat together quite early, family style, so they're done in time for parents picking them up. Also so my lot have eaten before they head out to their various activities which bring them home quite late - like 8ish. I'm there with them all, just not eating.

Weekends we do eat most meals together.

We don't eat all together and to be honest I like it that way! My kids are 2.5 and 11 months so they eat together for pretty much all meals and I have breakfast and lunch with them. They have dinner at about 5:30pm and DH and I eat later, because he's not back from work then and we both do sporty stuff on alternate nights so eat together after that.

I prefer to eat later with DH because I like to actually enjoy my dinner and not spend it refereeing my children. I hope that as they get older this will change!

Our default position, at the moment, is that we always have our evening meal together, and during the school holidays, the afternoon meal too. Some nights my DS12 stays at school till 7, in which case he comes home fed and the rest of us eat without him (but otherwise together). We only ever have breakfast together on Sundays, when I will do a full English or pancakes and bacon - I just don't fancy breakfast at 7:15 am! Most Sundays we have a roast together.

That all could be about to change, however, as I am due to go back to work with a punishing hour and a half commute each way. DH will have to step up to do the evening cooking (and he'll be fine), but I'm not sure if the DCs are going to be able to wait till I'm home before sitting down to dinner. It's something I'm going to miss.

I don't believe it leads to mental health issues (WTF?) but 4-5 out of 7 days we eat as a family, even if we're all eating different things. I found it is the best way to monitor mindful eating, correct use of cutlery, table manners etc. My boys are 6 and coming up 4, so we can't push it much later as bedtime starts at 6.30ish.

I've also started making life easier and doing Friday night pizza nights and Saturday night burger nights (assuming we don't already have plans) - Sundays we may eat out and when eating as a family, screens aren't allowed. If we're in a rush or one of us is out, then they can eat their dinner and watch a show on the ipad (but at the dinner table) but nobody has screens when we're all sitting down together.

You just have to do what you have to do. Some people may not having family meal times together but spend evenings playing board games together, or going on walks together which are just as enjoyable.
Family meal times don't always = quality time (especially not with small fussy kids).