Children At Dinner Table Essay, Research Paper

Where do children get a chance to simply sit down with their families and share what happened at school, hear a parent?s funny story from the office, or just share a joke?

At the dinner table, of course. But between soccer practice, choir rehearsal, homework, evening meetings, household chores and traveling on business, families these days often find it difficult to sit down together for dinner.

Why worry about having family dinners? Because children learn to communicate and to interact with others by doing it themselves and by hearing their families do the same. And when it comes to family communication, there?s no place like the dinner table.

One easy way to begin dinner conversations is by asking each family member to name one good thing that happened during that day, such as ?Mary shared a toy with me? or ?I made a new friend.? This exercise serves two purposes. It begins your dinner time on a positive note. It also provides a much better starting point for further conversation than questions that generate one-word answers, such as ?How was school today?? (?Fine?) or ?What happened at La Petite?? (?Nothing?).

And yes, sometimes it will be difficult to get everyone to the table for dinner. But if you make family dinner a priority, your children will benefit – by talking, by listening and simply by being there at the dinner table with the people who matter most to them.