THOUGH the nesting instinct has traditionally been said to be a sign that labor is imminent, I’ve been in nesting mode all summer—and so has the rest of my family. We’ve all been cleaning and preparing the house with the baby in mind—or at least, I’ve been cleaning and preparing with the baby in mind; it’s possible everyone else just wants to have a clean house. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.
It’s not just the house that I’ve been wanting to get in order though. I’ve also been wanting to get dinnertime in order. Specifically: manners, conversation, and parental sanity.
I think it’s pretty accepted that eating dinner as a family is important. When I decided we needed to work on this, I did a little research to be sure of why family dinners are held up as sacred (the Washington Post even called it “The most important thing you can do with your kids”), and the reasons included intellectual benefits like exposure to more advanced conversation and vocabulary; emotional benefits like lower anxiety and parent-children bonding; and nutritional benefits like kids having a tendency to eat more diverse foods, including fruits and vegetables, during family dinners. Research has even shown that children whose families have dinner together regularly have a lower incidence of drug and alcohol use, sexual activity, violence, and eating disorders. I didn’t need to be sold on the idea, but if I did, this information would have done it.
Despite having been brought up eating dinner with my family nearly every night, and being determined to do the same with my children, I’ve been baffled by how painful family dinners actually are (at least in my house). There has never been that peaceful scene of family togetherness and conversation that you see on TV; rather, our family dinners have mostly consisted of my boys using each other as audience members in their comedy routines and not eating until I decide I’ve had enough and start sending people away from the table until they’re ready to eat nicely. I’ve even banned talking at the table a time or two, and found myself enjoying those silent dinners more than the others. My husband and I regularly eat dinner after the kids are in bed, just so we can enjoy our meal. I could see that we were in a downward spiral that would clearly result in our boys becoming drug addicts who only eat donuts and potato chips and have sky-high anxiety.
It all came to a head recently when what should have been a nice dinner (everyone’s favorite foods) ended up being one of the worst ever (terrible behavior, frazzled parents at the end). My husband and I decided that night that things needed to change. The next morning I looked up strategies to make family dinners better, and decided on some ground rules for dinner:
(1) Good manners: No talking with full mouths, no elbows on the table, no interrupting others unless you say “excuse me” (and it better be for a good reason), no tipping in chairs, no getting out of seats without being asked to be excused.
(2) Good conversation: Mom and Dad decide the topic and who gets to speak when; everyone will have a turn and everyone will listen to the speaker.
(3) Good eating: No scarfing down food, dinner is dinner, no dessert until everyone is ready for it.
We implemented these rules that very night, and I was amazed at the immediate difference.
The boys seemed to enjoy this new challenge, for one thing. They listened very seriously as I explained what we would be doing, and nodded solemnly at each part. At dinner itself, they put expressions of civility on their faces and more than once I saw one of them look meaningfully at the other, which turned out to mean, “Get your elbows off the table!” My littlest guy watched his older brothers carefully and did his best to copy them—adorable!
The topic of conversation I chose was, “Everyone tell me one good thing and one bad thing that happened to you today,” and though I usually start with the youngest and move up when we’re doing a turn-taking activity, I thought it would be better to start with the oldest and work our way down, which would allow the younger boys to see and hear how their turn should go. We started with my husband, then myself, then each of the boys, and I actually felt like I learned something about each person’s day and each person’s personality, despite the fact that I spend every waking minute of my days with the boys. The boys took this all very seriously, and were careful to say, “Excuse me,” when they needed to interrupt to ask for more food. And my youngest ate the best he’s eaten in a long time! Usually he eats a few bites and then decides he’s done and goes off to play, but when he had his few bites and asked to get down and I told him we were all staying at the table until everyone was finished, he actually started eating again and ended up eating his entire meal!
To say that our first night of this new routine was a rousing success is an understatement. My husband said he thought it was the best dinner we’d ever had.
That was two weeks ago, and the improvement to our dinners is a dream come true. We’ve kept up our “one good thing, one bad thing” conversation at each dinner, and when we’re done with that we move on to another topic if we have time. One of the recent ones was, “What would your ideal weekend be”—it was fun to hear each of the boys describe their ideal weekends! (Even nicer was the fact that their ideal weekends looked remarkably like our usual weekends. That made this mama happy!)
I’ve always liked the idea of welcoming a new baby into a clean and orderly house, but this is the first time that my efforts to do so have included calm, orderly behavior. It’s a nice feeling to look around the table and feel proud of the funny, interesting family that our baby is joining, instead of looking around and worrying about the babe leaving the peace of the womb for chaos and disorder. (Of course, we still have chaos and disorder … just not at dinnertime.)
Kate and her husband have six sons ages 13, 12, 10, 8, 6, and 4; they’re expecting their seventh baby in the fall. Follow her at www.facebook.com/kmtowne23, or email her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
