I've been on a few different sides of this spectrum personally. I've had family meals for years straight where every night like clockwork, we gathered around and shared our days and watched a little Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy or whatever stuff was on the television. In 2013, it's a pretty common fact that what you eat effects your health. In a family dinner environment, the control of ingredients and meal choice is a lot higher than that of restaurants. As a family, it is a responsibility of the parents or guardians to make sure their child is eating nutritious meals because the adults are in control of the budget, groceries, and when they eat it usually. No one can expect an 11 year old kid to know what to eat or how to eat or how to be healthy, all they can think is "How can I make ice cream for dinner?". A huge responsibility of parents now is that they teach their kids about nutrition.
Another form of dinner excludes the whole family and can either be a portion of the family or completely solo dinners. If one parent works at night and can't be home for dinner, it makes family dinners less of a whole experience. Being from a family like that myself, it is tougher to bond together as a family and communicate effectively.There are certain situations where that is unpreventable however. The worst situation you could find yourself in is eating your dinners alone. This can cause disconnect between families and make for fuzzier communication between members of the family.
Currently, with my adoptive family, we do not eat family dinners on a nightly basis. When mom is home on the weekends, we instead go out to restaurants and eat and chat there. This is pretty nice because there's no hassle in the cooking and no one has to fight over who does the dishes, but before we used to do full family dinners. If you missed that dinner, you better make sure you had a damn good excuse or else you would get an earful for missing this bonding time. Eating out on a consistent basis has two glaring downsides. One is that the control of nutrition is severely hampered. It is possible to eat right by ordering intelligently, but you cannot go and create your own thing in the kitchen. The feel of a home-cooked meal environment is very different too because you feel closer to your family when it's at home and cooked by the family (ordering pizza doesn't count).
Overall, I have found that eating dinner as a family has certain psychological benefits that other forms of dinner. This can improve communication across the family and can be a fun time for everyone!
Another form of dinner excludes the whole family and can either be a portion of the family or completely solo dinners. If one parent works at night and can't be home for dinner, it makes family dinners less of a whole experience. Being from a family like that myself, it is tougher to bond together as a family and communicate effectively.There are certain situations where that is unpreventable however. The worst situation you could find yourself in is eating your dinners alone. This can cause disconnect between families and make for fuzzier communication between members of the family.
Currently, with my adoptive family, we do not eat family dinners on a nightly basis. When mom is home on the weekends, we instead go out to restaurants and eat and chat there. This is pretty nice because there's no hassle in the cooking and no one has to fight over who does the dishes, but before we used to do full family dinners. If you missed that dinner, you better make sure you had a damn good excuse or else you would get an earful for missing this bonding time. Eating out on a consistent basis has two glaring downsides. One is that the control of nutrition is severely hampered. It is possible to eat right by ordering intelligently, but you cannot go and create your own thing in the kitchen. The feel of a home-cooked meal environment is very different too because you feel closer to your family when it's at home and cooked by the family (ordering pizza doesn't count).
Overall, I have found that eating dinner as a family has certain psychological benefits that other forms of dinner. This can improve communication across the family and can be a fun time for everyone!
