Encouragement to Give your Children TIME

Listening to and talking with your child go hand in hand with family time and one of the best time-out activities is dinnertime. I am fearful that a generation of families has forgotten or never has known how to do this. Families across the nation that care about their children’s development are reclaiming the dinner hour and for good reason.

According to The National Center on Addiction and Abuse and American Psychological Association, dinnertime plays a crucial role in establishing communication with your children. “Well-adjusted teens-those with better relationships with their peers, more academic motivation and few, if any, problems with drugs and depression-ate dinner with their families an average of five days a week.”

Of course, the time to start is when children are young, because eating with the family is about more than just nourishing with food. It’s nurturing and educating children about family values and beliefs as well as discussions about what is going on in the world.

Parents forget and even doubt their ability to positively affect their children’s choices, but facts show that kids from hands-on families are at lower risk for substance abuse. Other benefits state children of families that regularly dine together tend to have higher self-esteem, interact better with their peers and show higher resilience when life gets tough.

With all the relentless negative press on high profile celebrity type 'mixed-up people', now would be the perfect time to sit and talk to your children about life-your beliefs and values.

Start simple.
Start now.
You can do it.