by Tara Shafer posted in Mom Stories

As my family has gotten older, one of the more difficult challenges we face is the family dinner.
Parents know this dinner well. This is the dinner where all family members sit down to the same meal at the same time. As parents, we are told that maintaining the family dinner has multiple benefits for children (health, psychological, academic) in the long run.
Oh, how I hate the tyranny of the family dinner.
I love to eat with my family. I love to cook for them. I love my family beyond all measure.
I don?t always love family dinner. The trouble is time. By the time a parent has finished working, shopping, volunteering in any number of classrooms, kept on top of kid administration (camp forms, back-to-school forms), and more -- maintaining the tradition of the farm-to-table dinner for five can feel out of reach. This is especially true when the children in a family span different ages. My kids range in age from 6 to 13 years old. This means that their schedules are as different as their tastes. Menu planning feels like a cooking show challenge: work within budgetary constraints to produce a meal everyone will eat although sports schedules mean that kids will be home at different times with undone homework and looming bedtimes (because who can forget the other piece of advice about guarding sleep in children as critical to their mental health).
I spend a good deal of time trying to stay connected to my kids. I do confess that this does not...