To me, sharing a meal with friends and or family is one of life’s essential pleasures. It doesn’t matter much whether it’s a big family dinner, light lunch, or coffee and cake with a friend, but the food should be good and the atmosphere convivial and unhurried. I appear to have passed on that attitude to the next generation, and it is a pleasure to see the first of another generation taking to the practice so readily.
It does concern me though, when I hear assertions that families ought to eat dinner at the table and there is something inherently wrong about those that don’t. If only the great unwashed would eat at the table like more respectable people, many social problems would magically disappear.
One argument is that families who eat at the table tend to eat more nutritious meals. This may be true but there is no logical reason this should be so. Putting food on a table doesn’t increase the nutritional value. A family can eat greasy take-away food and sugary drinks together at the table, or individual healthy snacks in front of the television. Perhaps the type of families who eat at the dinner table also happen to be the type of families where someone interested in nutrition buys and prepares the food.
Family mealtimes around the table can also be a place of stress, cold silence, heated arguments, arbitrary rules and boredom. These can’t be good for anyone – no matter how nutritious the food.
It’s the same problem I have with books and I’ve been wondering if it’s the same people who are telling people that they ought to eat at the table for their children’s nutrition who are telling them that they ought to read books to babies and toddlers at least daily.
I was interested then when I began to hear snippets of theories that family meals around a table at an early age can play a major role in learning to read years later – and it all hinges on the quality of the conversation. Now this does make sense. Placing food on a table can’t change it’s nutritional value, but placing people around a table full of good food does encourage good conversation.
“Conversations at the dinner table expand the vocabulary and reading ability of children. This benefit is not dependent on the socio-economic status of a family; children in all families do better when they engage in dinner conversations.”
https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fy1054now at https://ufdc.ufl.edu/IR00002117/00001
So how, you ask, does something that doesn’t involve books, teach children to read? It doesn’t, not directly anyway. But it does build language skills, awareness of rhythms, turn-taking, story telling, joking, puns and much more. And it does it in an apparently effortless way. This works to build children’s confidence in learning and dealing with more language and words, including written words.
The quote above has two important phrases that should be noted “This benefit is not dependent on the socio-economic status of a family” (my emphasis). It’s not about money, or flashcards, lots of books and expensive toys – what children need are adults, and possibly older children, with the time and inclination to converse.
“Children in all families do better when they engage in dinner conversations.” (my emphasis) The key here is engage. To engage in a conversation, you have to be accepted as a participant. That means young children sitting up at the same table as everyone else. They should be allowed to feed themselves, just like everyone else, so conversations aren’t interrupted by inane impersonations of aeroplanes crashing into mountains.
It means being mindful of their age while including them in the conversation because rules like being seen not heard, not playing with your food and not leaving the table until everyone has finished, get in the way of engaging in conversation. They will learn by doing, picking up table manners as they go, and when the conversation is good, they will be happy sitting at the table for longer.
And, if you really want a closer connection, try breakfast at the table. Reading cereal boxes while eating a solitary breakfast has helped many children’s literacy while adults race around getting ready in the morning. What’s more, cereal boxes make better reading than a lot of books struggling learners are expected to read.
