Setting a Dinner Time Frame for Kids

Video Transcript

"Its really kind of important that you decide from the beginning what sort of time frame you're going to expect for dinner in your home. If you're going to want your children to be at the table for a certain amount of time for the entire time that everyone's eating, you need to start instilling that in them, from the very beginning. I personally hate it when my older daughter comes to the table and swallows her food and gets up to go and talk on the phone with her friends. If you take the time to make a meal and to sit down as a family you obviously want everybody there and participating and I think that from the beginning you teach your children the value of the time that you are going to spend together and also learn to appreciate the time that you spent preparing the meal or whoever it is who prepares the meals in your home and let them know that we are going, this is the time frame that we decide that we are going to have dinner and during this time we're not going to take phone calls we're not going to do text messaging. We're going to sit down and engage as a family. I think that that's going to go along way in building both communication skills with your family and also really sort of a bonding experience. It's a great way to spend some time together to really kind of connect with your kids and know what's happened throughout their day and sometimes again it's the only time that a family gets to spend altogether and connect, so I would come up with a time frame, whatever you feel comfortable with. You know, some people are fine with twenty minutes, other people want longer amounts of time but you decide whats... You know, also it's age appropriate, your not going to want a toddler sitting at the table obviously for a very long time but go ahead and come up with your own time frame and stick to it."