For dual-career parents and teens who regularly shuttle between after-school sports, music lessons, homework, and a myriad of other activities, finding time to sit down together as a family can seem next to impossible. Yet finding the time to actively engage with your teenager is the best way to keep track of his or her feelings, issues, and concerns as they arise and to send clear messages about parent expectations and rules, says Nancy Gavilanes, communications specialist at CASA.
“The communication that occurs over the course of a meal is critical in building a relationship with your children and to understanding the world in which they live,” says Gavilanes. “If parents make it a point to spend more time with their kids early on, their children will be more inclined to turn to them later when they feel pressure from their peers to smoke, drink, or use drugs.”
A recent national survey of 1280 young people ages 13 to 24 conducted by the Associated Press and MTV shows that family time was the top answers when teens were asked what makes them happy. And what better way to foster that feeling than to sit down at the table together?
But How Do You Make the Time?
Elizabeth M. Casparian, a mother of three teens and director of education at HiTOPS, a Princeton, New Jersey-based non-profit organization whose mission is to promote adolescent health and well-being, suggests using alternative methods to get the family together.
“One family I worked with had a dad who commuted more than an hour to Manhattan and rarely made it home for dinner. He would make pancakes for his kids and share an early morning breakfast once a week on a school day. It really helped the kids to know that Dad wanted to be with them because he cooked the breakfast, set the table, and woke them all up himself.”
Sure, it’s hard! Parents work late; kids have extraordinary schedules and families are hardly ever together unless they plan to be. But according to the study, 58 percent of teens reported having dinner with their family at least five times a week. If they can do it, more of us can, too!
gigi gaggero, San Mateo, CA 12/05/07
What about breakfast together -- the meal doesn't necessarily have to be after five PM.
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