Any regular followers of my blog will know that food plays an important part in my life so when I was asked a while ago to take part in a discussion about family mealtimes, hosted by Bisto gravy, I jumped at the chance. Ever since my first child was a fussy eater I’ve made sure that I have eaten with him and his siblings as much as possible after realising that children can only learn to eat and sit at the table by learning from example. Simple but so often forgotten. Times have changed since my eldest was little though, he’s sixteen now and when he was born we didn’t have a computer or even a mobile phone in the house. We didn’t have Sky televison and there were no after school activities to compete with at mealtimes. Oh how it is so different now….
Worryingly research carried out by Bisto Aah Night, who questioned 3000 adults and children, has shown that family mealtimes
have become increasingly difficult to manage due to work pressures and extra curricular school activities. Sadly the research showed that only 47% of families sit down for a meal together at the weekend and one in ten families never have a meal together.
On a better note, the desire to eat together is very high, especially among children and parents are getting more and more frustrated with work getting in the way of this so Bisto have launched a Bisto Aah Night pledge to encourage and help families put aside one evening a week to sit down as a family and eat a proper meal together at the table.
On a good week we manage to eat all together twice during the week and then at the weekend, school and dance classes are the main culprits preventing any more. I find these mealtimes are a great way to get the children talking and telling each other about their lives. I believe they learn to respect each other, learn to listen and also the art of conversation, although I would be lying if I said it never ends up quite noisily.
So, why don’t you see if with a bit of shuffling around you could take the Aah Night Pledge and spend more time eating together.
And……for something different you must pop over to the Bisto Kids post to find out about an exciting new competition.
Great article. Whilst we’ve always had dinner together as a family, we’ve started getting up just that little bit earlier in the morning and having breakfast together also. It has cut the morning chaos in our house down to just a whisper. I go to work less frustrated; my wife is organised and the kids go to school with chat and laughter in their ears rather than American kid’s TV. Eating together is so important.
Thanks and thank you for the visit. I think having breakfast together is the ultimate perfect way to start the day. It sounds lovely. 🙂
We are the odd ones out as we eat together every dinner time. We moved to the other end of the country to be able to do it though. Nova you are all beautiful. I am not going to witter on as I have a post coming on it
What a gorgeous family you have. I love having family dinners but the little ones have dinner before we get in from work. We try to have a least one at the weekend. When they are older it will be easier. Great post. x
You have such a beautiful family! We always try and eat together as well, but its getting harder as L gets older but Im going to keep trying.
Going to echo what everyone said – beautiful family!!! Obviously all take after the Mother!! 🙂
Me & Jon eat when Oli goes to bed as we just find it easier to cook for ourselves and eat it with him not around. I really enjoy this mealtime I can to have with Jon. As Oli gets older we will makesure dinnertime is a family thing where he sits and enjoys the evening meal with us. Breakfast time is my favourite mealtime with Oli, we both sit on the floor in front of the TV watching rubbish morning TV and eating lots of nutella and fun breakfast things! 🙂
Look at you!!! Beautiful! Beautiful family!!!
I’m a huge! huge! huge! fan of family dinners. We probably eat 90% of our dinners as a family. I was brought up that way and it is one of the things that I recall and recall happily!
What a fabulous photo! We always try & eat together at the table, maybe I’ve taken it for granted.
We always try to eat together and we use mealtimes to say what we’ve been up to during the day. Our meals always descend into noisy chaos though!
What a beautiful photo of the family! Mealtimes are very important. Up until recently – our rule was to eat dinner together every night. At the table. No tv, no phones, etc. But then MC got big and started having activities and it’s kind of fallen by the wayside.