Time for dinner!

Posted on May 27, 2010 by GuestPost
Categories: Life Design,Simplification,Techniques

This is a guest post by Trish Smith, Owner of Simple Meal Plan. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Photo by kevindooley

How many times in the last few years have you heard or said those words? When we were growing up, it was a rare thing for most of us to skip family mealtime; in fact, it was so unusual, we knew from an early age that there had to be pretty extenuating circumstances for anyone to miss it. But if you’re like most people nowadays, you eat more dinners apart than together. And that’s not good.

Research has shown time and again that families that share dinnertime experience numerous benefits, including having kids who do better in school and are less likely to do drugs, smoke, drink, or get depressed. With all those positives and no negatives (except maybe having to listen to your spouse’s lame jokes AGAIN), why don’t we spend more time eating dinner together?

It’s simple: Time. We lead such busy lives – full of work, activities, school, and more – that most days we’re lucky if we get to eat dinner at all, much less share a meal with the entire family. Coordinating four or five (or more) schedules, shopping for groceries, planning the meal, and taking the time to actually cook it are, on some days, more than we can accomplish.

But it’s worth working toward, and there are some simple tools that can help us reach our goal. The key is, as in most other endeavors, good planning. We all know how well things go when we plan them out, and how poorly they go when we don’t. Here are some ideas to help you increase the number of meals you eat together:

Get some help. There are plenty of tools, both online and off-, that you can use to make family mealtime happen. A simple search on Google can provide you with numerous ways to make grocery shopping, meal planning, and cooking easier – even for families with very tight schedules.

Schedule, schedule, schedule. Schedule time for meal planning, shopping, cooking, and the meal itself. Share calendars with the other grownups and teenagers in the house; after all, if it’s not on the calendar it probably won’t happen.

Make the time. This is probably the hardest part, but like any other endeavor, you need to work on it if you want success. Unless you devote the time and energy to making this happen, it’s probably a guarantee that it won’t. Commit to creating this time for your family. After all, the most important benefit of family dinners is more time to connect with your family – and that’s something we all benefit from.

Have you tried to plan more family dinners? What tools do you use to make it happen? We’d love to hear about it in the comments!

Trish Smith brings you information each week that can help you make better food choices – from how to find locally-produced food, to how to prepare that food in a way that’s easy, simple, tasty, and healthy.

Photo by kevindooley