On Wednesday, November 13th the National Association of Mothers’ Centers will be hosting a webinar entitled: Connect with your Family… One Meal at a Time presented by John Sarrouf, director of The Family Dinner Project. To help highlight the event we are sharing a family dinner story from Grace—a social worker and Family Dinner Project workshop leader.
I interviewed for my position at The Family Dinner Project in early August of last year. One part of the interview process fell during my family’s annual trip to Garden City, South Carolina; a trek my father has been making with his parents, sister and brother since he was a child.
The night before the interview, I sat down to our family dinner with three generations of my family. I had been a ball of nervous energy all day, yet during dinner I breathed a sigh of relief…
If there’s one thing my family is good at, it’s dinner.
Now, before you get that Norman Rockwell picture stuck in your head, I would never say my family is perfect at the table.
- We’re loud
- We argue about religion and politics
- We have a tendency toward sarcasm
- And we we certainly run the full gamut of picky-eaters: from severe allergies to strong preferences, to a vegetarian, a pescetarian, and one I (lovingly) call our “starch-atarian”
I bet if you asked any of my family members what makes us good at family dinner, you’d hear a different answer from each of us.
To me though, the reason we’re good at family dinners is simple: practice.
As with virtually anything in this life, the more time you spend on something, the better you become. You keep what works and discard what doesn’t.
Because my family has practiced so much, we’ve all begun to learn what works and what doesn’t. For example, recently while working to train facilitators to run our FDP parent workshops, one of our trainees remarked that:
The reason family dinners ran so smoothly in her house was because each of the children knew who liked what element of the meal. They surreptitiously swapped side dishes until everyone had exactly what pleased them.
Thinking back to last year’s dinner table during our annual trip to Garden City, my family had done the same thing! I laughed when I remembered seeing my 17 and 18-year-old cousins angling to sit near my grandmother, who never finishes her steak and might pass it along to one of them. Later in the meal, and without hesitation, my sister grabbed the cherry tomatoes off my salad because she knew I wouldn’t eat them.
Our family really is well versed at what works during our dinners.
I’m often teased that I’ll be a family dinner expert by the time I have kids of my own. However with as much as I’ve learned from working at the Family Dinner Project, I think I’ve learned even more from my extended family.
The truth is, I’ve been stealing ideas from my own family this whole time.
My youngest cousin (now 13 but in my head perpetually a baby) has been a huge driving force behind fun and conversation at our family dinner table, and I regularly draw on her ideas in my work at FDP. She used to decorate the table with name cards in order to get involved in dinner preparation—one year she even researched what each person’s name meant and included that information on the card (FYI, my own name Grace means “God’s gift to man”). On Thanksgiving several years ago, she insisted that we do a “go-round” so each person at the table could state something for which we are thankful.
You don’t need to save these ideas for Thanksgiving. Both the name cards and the gratitude exercise are conversation starters you can use any time to ensure everyone feels included and involved in a family dinner.
I’ve been with FDP for about a year now, but I’ve been working on my own “family dinner project” my whole life. If I’m good at the whole dinner thing by the time I have a family of my own to feed, it’s because of my experience practicing with my own family.
So if you’re struggling with family dinners, here’s my “expert” advice:
Keep practicing.
Leave a Comment: How often does your family “practice” dinner together? What tools do you use to create a successful family dinner environment?
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This post was originally shared via the Family Dinner Project’s Blog.
Are you wondering if it’s possible to make dinner (or any meal!) a time to
relax, recharge, laugh, tell stories and catch up on the day’s ups and downs?
Join us November 13th from 8-9 p.m. for some inspiration - and practical ideas - to help make family meals a time for connection. NAMC Webinars are FREE to our members and open to non-members for a minimal fee. To find out more view our upcoming webinars or register here.
