This week I read a fascinating (and frankly rather scary) set of research data haling from the US about what happens when children don’t sit down to eat regularly with their parents.

I am passing on the findings to you. I think you will be as surprised as I was! The article was called “Fighting for Family Dinners” by Chuck Colson. I wrote to him to thank him very much for his work and received a very kind email back from one of his staff. Don’t you just love our American cousins?!

Chuck believes that something as simple as having dinner as a family every night totally changes the way children grow up and behave. He writes, “The dangers facing young people today are many: Premarital sex, drug abuse, suicide and dropping out (of school) among them. And if you listen to the “experts,” there are no easy answers for protecting our kids. And of course they are right. But saying there are no easy answers is entirely different from saying there are no answers.

The dinner table is not only where we share good food and drink. It is also where we share our values, what happened to us during the day “” the good, the bad and the ugly. It’s where we ask questions and learn from each other. In a relaxed atmosphere we can talk about our faith. The dinner table can be a great refuge from life’s hard knocks and stresses.”

I agree with Chuck. I find dinner times a fun and simple way of catching up with my little ones – and my husband.

But this is not all. Chuck writes further, “The National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University finds that teens who have dinner with their parents three or fewer times per week are four times more likely to smoke, twice as likely to drink, two-and-a-half times more likely to smoke marijuana and four times as likely to say they will use drugs in the future as those who eat dinner five to seven times a week with their parents.”

You may want to read that again. Basically it said this; Kids who eat with their parents regularly are FAR less likely to take drugs.

Chuck goes on to show some research connected with alcohol and other aspects of young health:

“These findings mirror the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health, which is the largest longitudinal study ever done on adolescents. This study has some amazing statistics. Of 12- to 14-year-olds who don’t experience family dinners at least five days a week, 14 percent report drinking more than once a month. That’s kids 12 to 14. But for those who have family dinners, it cuts it to 7 percent!

Also, 27 percent of 12- to 14-year-olds who don’t have regular family dinners say they think about suicide, compared with only 8 percent of those who do eat with their families. Among 17- to 19-year-olds, 68 percent without the influence of family dinners have had sex, versus 49 percent of those who have had family dinners.”

I find this amazing. Truly.
So next time you feel exhausted and want to let the kids watch TV and grab a sandwich, think about THESE facts.

I know, more than anyone, that family dinners take planning, cooperation and work. If they are older, your kids might protest at a “new routine” but let them! Seriously, the stats are staggering.

Let them eat your roast chicken… not suffer later in life with cold turkey.