Thanks Sheryl Sandberg for Taking Family Dinner "Out of the Closet"

Family dinner has come up again in the news, this time thanks to Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, who has come out publicly to declare that "Yes," she makes time for family dinner.  It is interesting that she said she's been doing it for years, both when she was at Google and now at Facebook, but has only recently "come out" for family dinner publicly. What a powerful statement! First, that you would have to "come out" to say that you leave the office at 5:30pm so you can have family dinner (and that it is big news with over 1,000 shares on Huffington Post). And second, that one of the leading business people in America can say that finding regular time for your family is important and priceless, and that it is important for women, and men, to agree to do it.

Sheryl Sandberg: Leaving Work At 5:30pm

I often get distinct reactions when I talk about family dinner. Some people treat my advice to try family dinner as something akin to suggesting they build a spaceship and take it to the moon -- it just seems like an impossible task! Other people whisper to me in hushed tones, "We have family dinner most nights a week, but I never really talk about it. It's great that you are actually talking about it." Their tone suggests that they are slightly embarrassed about making family dinner a priority and actually pulling it off regularly. There is a (genuine) concern that if you are committed to family dinner you must be

• hopelessly old-fashioned, 
• willing to commit career suicide, 
• have live-in help, 
• have a lot of time on your hands. 
• Or maybe all of the above.

I know from talking with dual-income working families across the country that family dinner is a way of life for many and not rocket science. But in certain circles, family dinner is totally "in the closet" and is some kind of mystery that men and women are reluctant to even discuss. I'm glad Sheryl Sandberg's statements are bringing out more discussion on family dinner so we can talk about the hows and whys to make it a reality. (Some of my own tips are here and Blog for Family Dinner is a great resource for stories about how real families are making it work.)

I applaud Sheryl Sandberg for coming out for family dinner. Will you? The first step to making family dinner a reality is the commitment. Talk with your family about what small steps you could take. Can you try for family dinner 2 or more nights a week? Can you build up from wherever you start? What would it take to put that together? Talking to your boss, doing more meal planning, reducing out some after school or evening commitments? Make the commitment and follow through. Just like you do at work everyday.

Family Dinner Survey: Some Early Results

Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed thus far to our Family Dinner Survey. The response has been great. (You can still take the survey if you missed it!)

One of my goals with the survey is to gain more insight into the challenges that people face in trying to accomplish family dinner on a nightly basis. I also hope to better understand why people value family dinner and what they see as its most important benefits.  I hope to get a wide range of experience from respondents: families that find family dinner impossible and those who are more successful at it. We can learn from all kinds of experiences about the best strategies to help families.

Usually research surveys unfold over months, and this effort is barely a week old, so these are preliminary results. Still, some interesting ideas are emerging from the survey responses.

1. Family dinner time is the time to connect, and eat healthy foods.
Overwhelmingly, the most often stated reason that family dinner is important is "family dinners give us a time to connect and be together." The next most popular response, thus far, is that "family dinner makes it easier to make sure my children are eating healthy food." Somewhat surprisingly, parents were less likely to report that "keeping kids off drugs" or "doing well in school" were their most important reasons for family dinner. This is interesting because much of the academic research community pushes these benefits as the most salient to parents.

The message here is that, for many people, family dinner is about creating connections with partners and children TODAY. Family dinner is about getting kids to eat healthy foods NOW. Forward projections of how it might benefit kids many years down the road may not be foremost on the minds of busy parents. Family dinner can build a great foundation for kids as they grow up, and thus can keep them focused on school and off drugs, but the results and benefits of family dinner can be seen immediately among these respondents.

2. The Best Strategy for Having Family Dinner: Make the Commitment.
The vast majority of respondents said the most helpful strategy for accomplishing family dinner was making a conscious decision to commit to it. This beat out every other reason, although knowing how to cook quick meals at home was another very popular choice. This mirrors my personal experience. There have been times when family dinner just seemed too hard, especially when the kids were little and demanding work schedules pulled at all of us. As a family, though, we decided that family dinner was too important to let slip by; we compromised and found a way to make it work. We eat late; we share the cooking and the clean up; we found a way. Merely taking the step and deciding that family dinner has value for you and your kids turns out to be critical.

3. Family Dinner is "Extremely Important" even for those who manage it 2 or less nights a week.
This is a "family dinner" survey, so most of the people who are motivated to take the survey had  high opinions of family dinner. Not a surprise, really. What surprised me, though, was that the respondents who rarely had family dinner (that is 1 or 2 nights a week, or never) still felt like it was "extremely important." Honestly I was expecting a little backlash! To me, this indicates that families want HELP making dinner, and family time, happen. This is something that parents want to do. Families could use  more support and less blame as we promote healthy eating and healthy habits for kids. This is an important message for educators, policymakers and researchers.

More to come....
I am just scratching the surface of the data here. There is a lot more in the survey to learn from and to share, and I hope to keep collecting data. So many people were interested in learning about the results, though, I wanted to give a hint at some preliminary findings. Keep checking back for more analysis.

A Note on the Survey Sample:
For the record, this survey is not scientific because the sample selection was not randomized. In fact, outreach was biased due to the nature of the data collection. Surveys were administered in person at school health fairs and workshops dedicated to healthy eating. The survey was also administrated online, with promotion through agents who are expressly interested in food, parenting or healthy behavior. The results were analyzed qualitatively to assess individual opinions about family dinner, and any cited statistics are not representative of the population at large. To date, the survey has been administered in Brooklyn, NY, in South Dakota, and online.

So why even do this survey, if it's not scientific or randomized? Well, I think that we have to get information about family dinner and its challenges from real parents who are on the "frontlines" of making healthy choices for their kids. Even in a biased sample, we can learn lessons about people's experiences that are valid and important; we just have to be careful not to generalize.

We will keep the survey open and available on the Eatdinner.org website and here. Please feel free to add your own experience and share the link with others!

The Family Table: Evidence and Support

Family Meals are better for your mental health, your physical health and your wallet. Below is just a small sample of evidence.

Creating the family dinner promotes healthy eating. Many studies identify nutritional benefits associated with eating meals together. One study, conducted by the Baylor College of Medicine, demonstrated that meals eaten together consist of about 50% more fruits and vegetables than meals consumed alone. In addition, family meals are three times more likely to include low-fat choices and are far less likely to include soda. In another study, Harvard University researchers found that children who ate dinner with their families were more likely to have better nutritional intakes at meals. The study identified families where mothers worked to underscore the fact that family dinner was possible even when parents had less time.

The family dinner can bring financial benefits as well. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 43% of the family food budget in 2006 was spent on “away from home” meals compared to food purchased from a grocery store. They also report that this translates into more than $2,000 per family per year spent on dinners away from home, and that 10% of those dinners come from McDonald’s. Guess how healthy those meals were. (Or look it up here.)

These benefits don't develop overnight, but often you can see results after a few meals together. Don't get discouraged if your first few attempts don't go over as well as you had hoped. A Time magazine article from June 2006 (cite) lends support and evidence to the idea that:

Family Dinners get better with practice.

It will for your family too!

This blog will be published Monday- Friday. Have a great weekend! (Psst....make a family meal this weekend!)

Finding Joy in the Family Meal

I’m not going to lie. There are many nights that it’s a frazzled rush to get a meal on the table. It’s after work, after homework help, after the littlest one has been bathed and put to bed (maybe), it’s pushing 8 o’clock and you wonder why make such a big deal about this eating together. Give the kids a bagel, a frozen pizza, or some french fries (which they seem to want every night) and call it a day.

Well, it is a rush, and it takes four trips back to the kitchen to remember everything. (And sometimes cross words are spoken..."Get off the computer, now!") But once we all finally get to the table, we take a deep breath and we begin. This is our time together. Almost everyday we have this time together to enjoy what we have and the company of our family. We eat, we ask “how was your day,” we pass the peas, and we have our time together. Sometimes we talk about big stuff, but usually it’s small stuff. Sometimes the kids fight over who gets the last of the juice, but they work it out. Things get spilled. And then frantically mopped up. Sometimes there are tears. More often, we laugh and enjoy each other. The kids finish first and have to be reminded to clear their plates. My husband and I linger, if we can, for a few more minutes. It is the best time of day.

More thoughts on Finding Joy, Bliss and Inspiration in everyday events.

The Family Meal—The Bonus

The family meal can be a really rewarding and satisfying time of day. It gives you a chance to stop for a minute and appreciate your partner, your kids, and yourself. You may be surprised how much more you learn about your kids and what they are doing when you’ve got them at the table. If you haven’t had a family meal in a while, your kids might be a little skeptical and not so open to chatting that first night. But as they realize that sitting down to dinner is regular gig, they will see the opportunity and open up. My kids are usually competing for who gets to tell his or her story first, and we have to be sure that each gets a moment in the spotlight.

That’s one secret of the family table: It's a time for listening to and learning from each other, a time to enjoy each other.

Stumped on how to get your kids talking? Here's some general ideas for talking to your kids. If communication seems to be a battle with you and your kids, I would recommend How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. Although the book can read as a little outdated or simplistic, many of the ideas really worked for me. I read the first book when my kids were toddlers and I re-visit their concepts again and again as my kids get older. (Faber and Mazlish also have a newer book for teens and the tougher to talk about issues.) Basically the idea is to make dinner an enjoyable time to talk, not a battleground time.

If the kids are reluctant to talk initially, just try talking about your own day, or asking your spouse about something at work or at home. The minute you start talking, one of your kids is bound to interrupt! (If you can, swallow your annoyance and listen.) And if the kids don't talk too much tonight, maybe you will get a chance to talk to your partner about something interesting. The kids might chime in tomorrow!