who eats a family meal at the table together?

[MomtoCandJ]

We eat dinner together just about every night :)

[4kidlets4me]

We eat dinner together every night. We have evening activities twice at week, we eat before the activities start.

[ScoutTN]

We do. Almost every meal. But our kids are little. I know it will be more challenging as they get older.

I'll learn as we go along I guess...

[AK_Mom4]

We have a family dinner. Always have. We work around the activity schedules, planning dinner for when the largest numbers of family members will be there.

 

For example - Monday and wednesday, Dd11 and I have skiing at 6:30 and ds17 has practice until 5pm, so we eat between 5:30 and six. Thursdays is scouts at seven pm, so we will probably eat between six and six-thirty. A little bit of flexibility goes a long way and on a night when we eat later, hungry folks grab a snack to tide them over. If someone has to miss a meal, they can eat earlier or later with leftovers or sandwiches.

 

We have done it this way since my oldest was a baby, so 21+ years now. One of the things our big kids tell us they miss the most while at college is the family dinnertime every night.

[GSOchristie]

The kids and I eat breakfast together, all five of us eat almost every lunch and dinner together. DH works from home, so his schedule is really flexible. We eat so early (b/t 4:30 and 5:00), that we can eat before soccer, the only activity we are involved in.

[Amy in NH]

We do. Every night. Even if it means eating quite late.

[Evergreen State Sue]

Even when we have evening activities (which included Sundays through Wednesdays) we sit down as a family to eat. I'm not sure what you mean by a family dinner. Sometimes it is a good homecooked meal, and sometimes it is something quick, but dinner is squeezed in sometime between 5:00 and 6:30, depending on when we have to be someplace.

[Annie Laurie]

This is interesting to me. I grew up with a mom who insisted we always have dinner together every day. I liked it, but I did not like that she insisted on it EVERY DAY NO MATTER WHAT. So I don't do that. If there are activities or reasons for not having dinner together we don't. Not a huge deal. We do have many dinners together, but not every. Plus I am with my kids all day every day. So if we don't eat dinner together it doesn't seem like a huge issue to me.

 

Basically this. We eat together most nights of the week. We even have music (jazz usually) and candle light, because we're geeks like that. But we don't worry about it if someone has an event in the evening. And Saturdays are my night off from cooking, dh and I eat alone.

[Delirium]

We do at least 3 times a week. Wednesday's are the easiest since it's our board game night.

[Loowit]

I always did growing up. We weren't allowed to eat anywhere but the dining room, and it was just part of our routine. It helped that most of our activities were right after school so we were home in time for dinner, except game nights. My DH grew up eating in front of the TV most nights, especially when his mom when back to work and they all fended for themselves for dinner.

 

When DH and I were first married we always ate together for dinner. After kids came along we kept that most of the time. However, slowly things evolved over time and we ended up eating when we could, often while DH was still at work. He had very erratic hours and would often be home really late. Now DH works out of town during the week, so it is just me and the kids. We have a different dinner time every night and very rarely eat at the table together, because of all the kids evening activities. Usually during the week our dining room table is covered in books and school projects. However, I always make sure it is cleared Friday night for the weekend so we can eat meals with DH when possible. Our kids love eating meals together as a family, so I am working to do that more often.

[DawnM]

It is busy season, we rarely eat together as a family with him there. The kids and I eat together usually for lunch and dinner. If DH is home, he eats with us.

 

There are rare occasions where it is a "go serve yourself and eat" but those are typically when one person it sick, we have been out all day and people aren't that hungry when I finish making dinner, or when we are simply on different schedules for the evening......but that is not often.

 

Oh, and we rarely sit down to a table anymore......we eat at the kitchen counter as there is no eat in kitchen table. The dining room table is usually full of school stuff.

 

It is fine though, as long as we are together.

 

Dawn

[Ellie]

We always ate family meals at the table together...when we were all home. :-) That would be most breakfasts (sans Mr. Ellie, who left the house at o'dark hundred weekday mornings) and lunches as well as dinner. You might have been thinking about dinner/supper, though. I count *all* of those as family meals; I don't think dinner/supper is more important than the others.

 

I wasn't as concerned with "family time," seeing as how the dc and I had been face to face all.day.long, and we'd be with Mr. Ellie all weekend long, and most evenings, even if we weren't sitting at the table together. I just wanted them to know that when it's time to eat a meal, you sit at the table and eat on nice dishes--no pots and pans on the table--with cloth napkins and use your best table manners.

 

I don't see how you could make a rule about older dc being home in the evening if they have activities going on. :confused1: Seems to me the only way to do that would be to limit their activities, which isn't a bad idea, but still...

[Heather in Neverland]

Yes, we eat dinner together, at a table, every day of the week. I think it is very important.

[shanvan]

We do, for the most part. We make exceptions for some extracurriculars or events, but for the most part we eat together at the table every night....except Fris when we usually have pizza in the living room.

 

We aren't legalist about it, but we do try to guard against activities that habitually (meaning more than one night a week) break up our family dinners. Interestingly, it is our church that most often attempts to impede our dinners with activities that are too close to mealtime. Summer Bible school was the biggest offender. For two weeks we would have to leave the house before Dh even got done work, so no family dinner for 2 weeks--and we split into different classes all night for 2 weeks, arriving home at 9:30 or so at night. So, basically Dh would give up all interaction with his children for that time. We do not participate any longer.

[higginszoo]

Up until the kids started hitting their teens, family dinner was an every day thing. Now that we're more in the teen stage (though with a mid-elementary thrown in), it's not every night, but we do usually manage 3-4 nights a week. Their activities, work, dh's work, etc. don't make it possible every night, but we do pay attention when making commitments and try to keep a few nights a week open. (On Thursdays, I've claimed a prior commitment to some people, but really, it's just so that we have a chance to at least eat together.) Some nights, activities line up nicely ... like Mondays, when dh and the boys go to scouts and youngest and I have classes (I teach, she goes to another class in the same building). Other times, like Tuesdays and Wednesdays, eating together isn't practical ... dd gets done with work at 4:30-4:45, and I have to pick her up, then leave to get the little one to choir at 5:15, and the boys either come with me to start their carpool or they're gone by the time I get home, and then aren't back til 9:30 or 10 ... dh picks little one up at 6:15 on his way home from work. On Wednesdays, dh has karate from 5:30-6:30, and then the boys have to be there at 7 (thankfully, dh moves up to the next level next month, so we might have a bit more sanity in the schedule and a chance to eat together). On the nights that we don't eat together, I do encourage them to sit down with whoever also needs to eat ... so on Tuesdays, the boys eat together (while I pick up big sis), sometimes with baby sister, or sometimes the littlest waits until after Dad brings her home and eats with big sis, Dad and I (crock pot meals are a must on these days).

[freeindeed]

We have dinner together at the table at least four nights a week. Hubby works a second job on Friday nights, and lots of times my middle two children are at a friend's house on one weekend night (or they have friends here.)