Family Dinners: A Ritual We Need Now More Than Ever

We’ve been forming new habits during the long months of the coronavirus—and one that's worth keeping is the revival of the family dinner. The Executive Director and Co-Founder of The Family Dinner Project, psychologist Anne Fishel, shares why meals together are great for physical and mental health — and how dinner-time conversations can strengthen family bonds.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to this episode of Here's Something Good, a production
of the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio.
Each day we aspire to bring you the good news,
the silver lining, the glass half full, because there is
good happening in the world everywhere, every day. We just
need to look for and share it. Here's something Good

(00:27):
for Today. During the long months of the coronavirus, we've
all been forming new habits, many of which will happily
discard once the all clear sounds. But there's one habit
that's definitely worth preserving, family dinner. New York Times food
writer Sam Sifton called the resurgence of family dinners one
of the precious few good things to come out of

(00:48):
the pandemic. That bright spot reverses the trend of the
last three decades, during which eating together as a family
declined by thirty Family dinner used to be the norm Sadly,
until recently, about half of Americans said they rarely have
a family dinner. Now. There are lots of good reasons
to preserve the family dinner, such as smarter children and

(01:09):
healthier families, but one of the most critical is that
these gatherings give us an opportunity to talk over the
concerns of the day, whether it's the COVID anxiety or
the state of race relations in this country. Family dinner
is where we can dispel fear with facts, there are
different points of view, and pass on the values that
are important to us today. We talked to Dr Ann Fishelle,

(01:31):
an expert in family dinner. She's the co founder of
the Family Dinner Project. But first let's take into why
family dinners are so important. So let's start with a
little perspective. The family dinner habit that used to be
the default has dwindled to the point where now only
one out of every three families has dinner together every
night of the week, and the time devoted to those

(01:51):
meals has shrunk as well, from ninety minutes to less
than twelve minutes on average. The Family Dinner Project is
a nonprofit that not only promotes the advantages of these meals,
but offers easy and healthy recipes, fun activities and games
for dinner time, and even ideas for dinner conversations. Recently,
the Family Dinner Project added a new conversation starter to

(02:13):
its site, Recipe for Conversation on Anti Racism, which provides
discussion questions on silence feelings relating to bias and waste
to combat prejudice as a family. We're fortunate today to
talk to Dr and Fischell, executive director and co founder
of the Family Dinner Project. She's also a clinical psychologist
and Associate clinical Professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School.

(02:36):
Here's what she had to say. I'm a family therapist,
and I realized about twenty years ago that there was
so much research showing that the many of the same
things I try to do as a family therapist could
happen if families had regular family dinners, that they would

(02:57):
feel closer to one another, they would enjoy each other more,
they would bond, all kinds of mental health challenges would
be mitigated. Regular family dinners are great for the bodies
that the health, the brain and cognitive functioning, and the
spirit or mental health of children and their families. Just

(03:20):
a few examples. Younger kids have bigger vocabularies, school aged
kids do better in school, kids eat more healthily with
less fat and sugar and salt. Teens have better cardiovascular health,
and when young adults go on and start to live
on their own, they eat more healthily and have lower

(03:40):
rates of obesity, and there are also many mental health benefits.
So there are documented lower rates of eating disorders, depression, anxiety,
substance abuse, behavioral problems, um. And this all comes together
when because kids can and reliably with their parents as

(04:03):
long as the atmosphere around the dinner table is warm
and welcoming. The dinner table tends to be the time
of day that's most reliable for families to get together
and talk. It's a ritual. Usually family members have their
own feats, what they talk about, what emotions are allowed

(04:25):
at the table. It's really a place where families say,
this is who we are. We're a family who wants
to learn together. We're a family that likes to have
fun together. We're a family that talks about things that matter.
Of course, you don't want every conversation to be difficult.

(04:45):
You know, there needs to be a feeling of trust
and comfort in order to enter into those conversations. But
families have all kinds of difficult conversations over time, and
I think that's important for all families to enter these
discussions knowing that they don't have all the answers. Some
parents may lead with excitement that we're able to talk

(05:09):
about this topic. It's so important and maybe we can
make a difference by talking, I think in these conversations,
to be honest, to say what you don't know, to
keep reminding your kids that you want to hear what
they have to say, that you're there to help them
understand what they're confused about, that they can ask questions

(05:30):
now or later. A sort of joke that the pandemic
has done for family dinners. With over ten years, the
Family Dinner Project hasn't been able to do, which is
to bring families together in a regular way. And one
thing that I'm hearing from the families that I work
with in my practice is that families who didn't really

(05:52):
enjoy family dinner are finding that it's really quite a
lot of fun, quite valuable, and maybe something that they're
going to want to hang on to even once the
pandemic is over. I've always loved getting together with family
for meals, and it's so great, dear from Dr Fischell,
that family dinners are more than just a nice tradition.

(06:13):
For your next meal with your children, you might try
this conversation game that Dr Fichelle gave us. It's called Rose, Thorn, Bud, Rose,
say something positive that happened today, Thorn, what's one thing
that was challenging? And Bud, what's something you hope will
happen tomorrow. For more serious conversations, think about planting thoughtful

(06:34):
questions such as what plans did you miss out on
during the pandemic? Or how have you felt seeing or
hearing the news about George Floyd. The answers present an
opportunity to share values. In fact, I can't think of
a better way to tackle these topics. Talking about important
issues with our families in a safe setting and in
a productive way will go a long way to creating

(06:55):
the mindsets we all want to see. So here's something
good for today. The family dinner is more important than
we may realize, and now is the time to make
the most of it. We can appreciate the gift the
pandemic has given us and continue to maintain the tradition
of good food and meaningful conversations. Check out the Family
Dinner Project for what they call quote conversation recipes, including

(07:18):
one that tells us how to talk about racism. To
learn more, visit the Family Dinner Project dot org. Thank
you for listening. And please share today's something Good with

(07:39):
others in your life. This is Kim Azarelli, co author
of Fast Forward and co founder of Seneca Women. To
learn more about Seneca Women, go to Seneca Women dot
com or download the Seneca Women app free in the
app store. Care Something Good is a production of the
Seneca Women podcast network and I Heart Radio. Have a
Great Day Yeah. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,

(08:06):
check out the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.