In our article “5 Scientifically Proven Reasons Why Family Dinners Are Important” we talked about how regular family meals have great physical, mental and emotional benefits for children and their parents. But as you can imagine, the magic trick here is not the food itself but the family bonding time. What this essentially means is what you talk about and how you talk at the table matters.
In our family, we talk a lot. Really a lot ☺ However, mealtime with three little children sometimes turns into madness – most of the time, the main goal is just to feed everyone and stay sane. But as they grow older, we’ve noticed that we can actually manage a meaningful conversation between the five of us.
So we’ve started to look for different ideas – what can we discuss with young children and how to use the family dinner-time wisely?
In this article, we’ve collected seven ideas to have a better family dinner that we’ve picked up from different books and put into practice within our family.
Idea No 1: Technology free dinner
Technology decreases our connection with each other. So our number one rule for family dinners – no TV (actually, we don’t even have one) and no phones. Here is why.
Some time ago (before the COVID-19 lockdown ☺), we visited our friends for dinner. We hadn’t seen each other for a while, so we had lots of things to catch up on. But something was constantly dragging our attention from the conversation. That was the TV! Oh. My. God. Both of us were struggling not to look at it. And kids were continually distracted from their play, even though it was not a cartoon but a music channel. And when we got into the car, the first thing we said to each other was: “Don’t think we should ever get a TV!” Not only does it diminish the connection between people, but it also, as research suggests, causes you to end up eating more without even noticing it.
Getting rid of the TV during mealtime may be an easy thing to do. But here comes enemy number two: mobile phones. Science says that even if we don’t actively use our smartphone (just leaving it on the table or holding it in our hands during a conversation), it does two bad things: firstly, it decreases the quality of conversation and, secondly, it diminishes the empathic connection between people. Moreover, the research suggests that it gets worse when we talk about meaningful things.
So we keep our phones away and out of sight. The only exception – occasional googling when the children ask a challenging question ☺
Idea No 2: Create an atmosphere of love and respect
Nathaniel Branden is one of the world’s leading experts on self-esteem and a strong advocate of family dinners. In his iconic book “Six Pillars of self esteem” (check out the notes) he writes:
“I ask that dinner be slow and leisurely and that everyone be invited to talk about his or her activities and concerns. No lectures, no sermons, no patronising, just sharing of experiences, everyone treated with love and respect. The theme is self-expression and self-disclosure—and the sustaining of connections.”
When we create an engaging environment where all the family members can express their thoughts and feelings openly without being judged, we offer “a profound psychological gift” to our children and ourselves. We create a strong sense of family and belonging.
So simple, but so powerful.
However, that’s easy to say but harder to do, as it requires lots of mindfulness from parents. We also try to keep difficult conversations away from the dinner table.
Idea No 3: 10-50-1 rule
In “The Secrets of Happy Families” (check out our notes) Bruce Feiler shares a very cool “10-50-1 formula” for improving your family meals, which we try to follow now. Here is what it means:
- 10 – Aim for ten minutes of quality talk per meal: usually, our conversations at the table are mostly about food and getting everyone fed (especially with small children): “Could I have more water please?” or “Mama, Max took my tomato!”. The quality talk involves reflecting on the day, talking about a topic, telling stories, sharing dreams and concerns and so on. That may sound like a time-consuming task, but, according to research, ten minutes of substantial conversation is enough for mental and emotional benefits. So even if you are in a rush, you can do it.
- 50 – Let your kids speak at least half of the time: adults usually use up most of the ten minutes talking. But the whole point is to socialise with your children. So let them talk for half of the time. You can also practice your listening skills.
- 1 – Teach your kids one new word at every meal: “a large vocabulary is a great boost in life” – writes Bruce. Children with large vocabulary perform better at school and generally succeed in life. Watch this TED talk by Dr Brenda Fitzerald on her fascinating research on this topic!
I must say, in our trilingual family, “One new word” always turns into “Three new words”. But the kids don’t mind ☺ And often, it ends up as an etymology lesson.
Idea No 4: Just talk about the day
One of the easiest and most powerful conversation starters is “How was your day?” That’s a very simple way to connect with each other after a long day and share our reflections. Usually, we just discuss what we did, what we learned, what made us smile today, what was challenging and how we dealt with it. That’s about mindfulness and sharing our thoughts and feelings with each other.
Recently while having a dinner we asked Alex (3.5yo) how his day was. He said: “It was great. But we had an English class, and I didn’t get a stamp.” And from his voice, we could sense that something happened. We asked: “Why?”. “Because I was naughty, and I even had to apologise.” So that was an excellent opportunity to connect and discuss the lessons he learned.
Idea No 5: Talk about family history
Psychologist Marshall Duke argues that the more children know about their family, the more resilience and self-esteem they have (check out his TED talk). And your dinner table is one of the best places to share your family history with children.
Both of us are totally fascinated with family history (Dawid even managed to get records from the 17th century). So here are the stories we usually tell our children:
- Stories about their ancestors – where they came from, where they lived, and what they did. Sometimes we show them the places we talk about on a map – the kids absolutely love it!
- Stories from our own lives – sharing some memories about what we liked to do when we were kids, how we spent time with our parents (their grandparents), how our nurseries/schools looked like, talking about challenging times, our interests, games, how we met, how our life looked like before we had them and so on (they also love to hear how life was without smartphones, iPads and YouTube looked like ☺)
- Stories from when they were little – young kids LOVE stories about themselves. We often try to highlight their development progress (a few years ago vs now) and tell the stories of how they’ve overcome struggles (e.g. like learning to walk and talk in 3 languages). And, of course, for the last year, we were talking a lot about the places we’ve travelled together and our adventures ☺
Idea No 6: Talk about interests and life purpose
All positive psychology luminaries say that people who have a strong sense of purpose in life enjoy the highest level of well-being. William Damon, one of the world’s leading scholars on human development, says that families are the primary source of purpose for children. In his excellent book “The path to purpose” he talks a lot about how parents can help children develop their sense of purpose in life (check out the notes), but here are two tips, which we put into practice for our family dinners (considering our boys are still very small):
- Discussing interests: we ask the boys what they like and what they would like to explore or do. That’s all about “listening for the spark” as Damon puts it. And then we try to help them to explore this interest further (e.g. the last conversation ended up by signing them up to a swimming school)
- We talk about our own interests and purpose – that’s about leading by example ☺ and here comes one important rule – never complain about work!
Idea No 7: Ask them questions
I’ve noticed I ask the same questions every day: “How was school/nursery?”, “With whom did you play today?”, “What did you eat today?” (not sure why I ask this question – maybe I’m just looking for cooking inspiration ☺). And obviously, the kids children give me pretty much the same answers every day. So we’ve decided to top up our discussion about the day with other conversation starters. Here are our top 5:
- Where would you like to go for a holiday and why?
- If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
- What makes you feel happy?
- Which one thing can you do tomorrow to make it a little bit better than today?
- Do you have any questions? (our kids LOVE it and always come up with cool ideas)
Considering that the boys are now at school/nursery for the whole day, a family dinner is now our number 1 tradition – even though it is a big challenge with three small children. Starting small, we are gradually building up a great family habit. And the boys love it!
Of course, it may be hard to get everyone together at the dinner table every day. But scientists say that even one family meal (dinner, breakfast, lunch, snack) a week can make a big difference for all the family.
So a question for you – how can you make a family meal a habit? What would you talk about with your children?
Loads of love,
Irina and Dawid
