Families: how to make them stronger so they stay together?

In the UK and I suspect many other countries too, the school half term is now over.

How did the holiday break go with you and your family?

This includes grandparents and anyone else who may have been involved with providing child care for younger children or ‘entertainment’ for older ones in half term week.

Hopefully you all had a wonderful time. But if my memory of being a working mum serves me right, this was not always the case. There is often so much expectation of the fun of being together, but without the ground work already in place, anticipation can turn to disappointment, frustration and fatigue.

So with Easter only 6 weeks away, it seems right to talk about families and how we can improve the time we spend together.

Do you regularly practice being together and listening to one another?

My observation is there are many benefits for families who regularly eat together. As they saying goes;

Families who eat together stay together.

In our busy 21^st century lives, there is a trend towards families eating their meals from trays watching TV rather than sitting to a table and facing each other.  Likewise teenagers, if allowed, will take their food and eat in their bedrooms.

• Eating a meal at a table together as a family strengthens the family bond. Over the meal conversation will flow backwards and forwards between parents, between parents and children.  By sharing their day’s news, family members are more involved with each other’s lives.  This gives opportunities to support one another and for parents to guide a child.
• Listening to the conversation between parents is another opportunity for children to learn how to behave with another person and to love and support that person.  The simple act of eating a meal together provides many opportunities to learn for all involved.
• Children may resist family dinners but as they become adults, they will come to value them. They may even repeat the process with their own children. Children can learn much at the family dinner table. This can include listening to and participating in parental discussions on economics, world issues, and what it means to be living a life. Children gain the opportunity to assess and form their own life values.

Dinner is a wonderful opportunity not to be missed. Even if siblings want to fight and argue over dinner or parents disagree with children, (yes, I have been there…) do not despair. It will pass and you will gain the benefit of being together even if you agree to disagree. Life is often about compromise so practising it at home is good.

Try eating dinner together as a family tonight and enjoy your young people.

Don’t give up if was difficult and everyone complains. It takes time to make change happen and to gain the benefits of being together and being stronger for it. My children are adults now but I’m so glad we ate together when they were young. I am a grandma-in-waiting now but I hope I will get the opportunity to do family meals again.