How To Feel Better About Family Dinner

It doesn't need to be perfect to be beneficial

Here’s a math problem for you:
Kid 1 attends dance rehearsal Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 4 - 7
Kid 2 practices soccer on Tuesday and Thursday from 6 – 8
Parent 1 gets home after 6 on Monday and Thursday
Parent 2 will be out from 7 – 9 on Tuesday and Friday
Solve for dinner

If you can relate to this, you’re in the majority. Less than a third of families routinely eat together and the average family dinner is fast (really fast – only 15-30 minutes). While most families want to have dinner together, it just doesn’t always happen.

We’ve all heard ad nauseam that family dinner is important. According to Parents, family dinner gets credit for benefits from the obvious to the unexpected, such as healthier eating habits, bolstered self-esteem, enhanced academic performance, and reduced risk of substance abuse, among others. With evidence like this, the idea of family dinner can feel like the inside of the Instant Pot I gave away because I was so rarely home at the time I would need to use it: high pressure. How are families supposed to find the time to consistently come together for dinner, let alone cook it?

When I came across this interview with Anne Fishel, family therapist and executive director of The Family Dinner Project, it opened the release valve. In her interview with Harvard EdCast, Fishel shares some out-of-the-box thinking around dinner. Along with her experienced insights on the importance of family meals and suggestions to make them happen, she brings home the fact that eating together doesn’t need to be perfect in order to be beneficial. The full interview is worth a read, but I’ll share a few highlights that put my own mind, and hopefully yours, at ease about dinner.

Photo by irws on Unsplash

“Dinner” doesn’t necessarily have to be dinner.

Weekday evenings are often some of the hardest times for families to align their schedules. After a long day, it’s also a tough time to get our pickiest consumers to eat or try new foods, leading to tension at the table. Fortunately, timing of the meal has nothing to do with the benefits of “family dinner.” Breakfast, lunch, and even snacks offer the same advantages, as long as you are eating together.

“If you think of it, there's 16 opportunities for a family to eat together in a week, seven breakfasts, seven dinners, and two weekend lunches, and any of those would count towards the benefits.” – Anne Fishel

Family meals don’t have to happen all the time.

While most research on family dinner is based on five meals a week, Fishel pushes back on the idea that there is a magic number. In addition to expanding the definition beyond dinner, she encourages families to aim for “at least one good enough meal together a week,” with the belief that it will lead to more. Even if you can’t get to five, whatever you’re able to do can have a positive impact.

What you eat matters less than whether you are connecting at the table.

Figuring out what to make for dinner is often overlaid with pressure to serve food that is homemade, nutritious, perfectly cooked, or feels like a “real meal.” However, Fishel suggests that the experience at the table is more important than what everyone is actually eating.

“The secret sauce of dinner is really not about the food at all. The secret sauce is, is it enjoyable? Do kids feel that when they speak, somebody wants to listen to what they have to say? Is there not much criticism, or anger, or conflict at the table? These are the things that I think families really should focus on.” – Anne Fishel

In other words: Yes, eating together as a family is important, but you’re probably already doing enough. If dinner is not your meal, no sweat. Maybe you would rather come together for a few breakfasts in the morning, weekend lunches, or bedtime snacks, and you’re doing just fine.

Recipes & Links

• A recipe I’ll be making this week: Chicken Shawarma and Sweet Potato Fry Bowls from Half Baked Harvest. The flavor on this chicken is delicious and it can be prepped/marinated ahead of time. (Tip to simplify: I skip everything from asparagus down on the ingredient list and just put the chicken and sweet potatoes in some pitas.)

• A dinner table conversation starter from the Family Dinner Project (and a favorite at my house ever since my son brought it home from camp): Rose, Bud, Thorn

• A cookbook I recommend for simply getting a family dinner on the table: Dinnertime SOS by Amy Palanjian