Eating together

The other day, actually it was a few weeks ago now, I heard a piece on the radio about how most families no longer sit down and eat together as a family.  I was a bit surprised, obviously I realised that there would be some families that didn't have a family meal together, but as it's something that we have always done I just assumed that everyone else did too.

The more I thought about it though, the more sense it made.  There are heaps of people who are that busy doing things, that all being ready to eat, at the same time, is just out of the question.  I have friends who are either so late home from work themselves, or their partners are, that they couldn't expect the children to wait that long to eat.  As children get older, they often have all kinds of activities that mean eating together as a family, just isn't going to happen.

The thing about eating together though, is that it's great for your family.  It's a chance to sit down together and catch up with what's been going on, find out what is happening.  It's also a great way to show your kids how to sit down and enjoy food, rather than bolting through a meal in a few seconds, just enjoying a meal as a social occasion. For younger kids, watching you eat is a great way to teach table manners, and to encourage eating different foods.  Now I'm not saying my kids are perfect in either of these respects, but they're not bad, and it all helps.

I remember when I was a child myself, we didn't always manage to sit down together for every meal, but even as I got older and things came up that kept us out of the house at the normal meal times, we always sat down all together on a Sunday for Sunday dinner.  I don't always do a Sunday roast now, but I try to do one as often as I can, and I hope that even as we all get busier and life gets more hectic, we can still sit down together to eat at least one day a week.

Do your family eat together?