How About Having Your Family Bring Back this Once Common Daily Practice?

A lot of common practices and family traditions from your grandparents’ or parents’ generations have gone by the wayside, and among them is the practice of families sitting down together for dinner every night of the week. The dropping of this once common routine of mom, dad, and the kids eating meals together daily at the same table has negative effects on people’s physical, emotional, and spiritual health. 

Because more families than in any other time of history are either run by a single parent or by two parents who both work outside the home, it is more convenient nowadays for family members to eat fast food on the run or microwave unhealthy meals. Similarly, because more children than ever before are either over-scheduled with sports practices and the like or are over-exposed to screen time and can’t pull their faces away from screens, it is easier for family members to eat dinner separately based on their unique calendars. 

When mom and/or dad cook from scratch at home, not only is it healthier than any convenience-food options, but it introduces their kids to a wider variety of foods which will lead to lifelong healthy-eating habits. Additionally, the children benefit if they help with preparation – whether it’s setting the table or cutting the vegetables – and if they see their parents modeling the enjoyment of a healthy, well-balanced meal.

Besides improving physical health, eating at the dinner table has a positive impact on family members’ spiritual health and improves the chances of bonding and remaining a strong, stable household.

The family is the essential cell of society, the basic building block of civilization. Without the family there can be no well-ordered society. In this 21^st Century, there are evil, perverse, and dangerous enemies who want to attack society, and they know the straightest line to their objective is to get to the family. You destroy the family; you annihilate the culture. So, if we agree that the family is in crisis today, one simple way to help save it is to bring back this once common daily practice of eating dinner together. 

Since it takes a rare person to start an organization, get elected to a government office, or make a giant difference in the world through some massive, nationwide, or worldwide action, how about starting small, yet also smart, in the effort to save the family? Simply save your own family. And one fundamental way to achieve this is for mom, dad, and all the children to sit down at the same table every night to communicate, to eat a healthy meal together, and to kick it off with prayer.

Even though it may seem very basic, saying grace as a family before dinner every night is a foundational act that if undertaken is sure to bring positive results. A primary trait that distinguishes any ol’ family from a family seeking to live the authentic Catholic/Christian difference in their daily lives is that latter family prays together. 

Right before digging-in to the delicious home-cooked meal (or the take-out pizza on rare occasions), it would be beneficial for all family members to outwardly give thanks to God for the little blessings that have occurred over the last 24 hours. A strong suggestion is for the family saying grace together to do more than reciting the basic “Bless Us, O Lord” prayer by tailoring their family’s version of grace so that everyone old enough to speak gets to add in something. Try this: 

1. Mom or dad begins by leading everyone in making the Sign of the Cross and then saying, ”Dear Lord, we thank you for this time our family is together. I am especially grateful for…”
2. Then mom or dad states one thing that he/she is thankful for, and each person around the table adds a similar sentence – “Thank you God for…” or “I am grateful for…” This can be something special that happened in the last 24 hours (such as “…for making a new friend at school” or “…for doing well on my math test”) or for a more general, perpetual gratitude (such as “…for the beautiful mountains and forests.”)
3. Grace ends with the entire family collectively praying, ”Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, from Christ our Lord, Amen,” and signing off with the Sign of the Cross.

Getting in the habit of your family saying grace before meals is a good way to remind yourselves that everything we have comes ultimately from God. Bonus points if you become a family who says grace quietly yet publicly at a restaurant after your waitress serves you your food. What a terrific witness you and your kids will be to other diners.

Moreover, a rule that not enough families these days implement is “no phones at the dinner table.” This should be a rule whether at home or at a restaurant. Electronic devices of any kind should not be allowed at family meals so to promote face-to-face communication among siblings and parents and to help youngsters learn how to converse, which has sadly become a lost skill among the majority of people born during the age of cell phones.

Some families reading this will be overwhelmed with the above suggestions because they cannot envision taking time to say a comprehensive grace together when their family rarely even eats at the same table. It is understood that the modern family with elementary-age and high school-age kids is more often than not going their separate ways most evenings, such as with dad not yet home from working out at the gym, with mom on the road picking up the younger daughter after gymnastics practice, and with the older son hanging out at a friend’s house after football practice. In this situation of a family who finds themselves rarely all at home during the dinner-hour, a suggestion is they sit down as a family every Sunday night to calendar the upcoming week’s family schedule and firmly resolve there will be at a set number of specific nights of the week when everyone will be required to be home to eat dinner together as a family. It may only be three nights a week to start, but that 43% success rate can eventually lead to increasing numbers as the family finds the together-time beneficial to their spiritual and physical health and ultimately makes family dinners a top priority.

One more positive benefit of eating together as a family is the emotional health upside.   There are decades of multiple studies which show that family dinners are associated with lower rates of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and eating disorders, and higher rates of resilience and self-esteem in both the parents and the kids. This is yet another reason why pressing all the members of your family to be home from dinner as many evenings as possible is a fight worth having. 

Dinner time can be a welcoming, safe place for youngsters to communicate with mom and dad, as well as their siblings. Another reward of a family eating dinner at the same table nightly is it strengthens their connections and relationships with each other and provides the children with an important sense of belonging. The video “Make Dinnertime Matter” demonstrates how significant a family meal can be.

From better mental health, to improved healthy diets, to increasing the amount of time your kids converse with you and each other and pray in thanksgiving to God, family dinner time is a nightly ritual that can be a most powerful way to enrich your family.