Family meals improve grades for children, prevent substance abuse

(Photo: PBoGS/Flickr/CC BY-SA)

If you are too busy to have family meals and, instead, allow your children to grab their food and run for their rooms, you might pay for it later with every kind of problem most parents try to avoid with their kids. A study done by National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University has some great news for helping your children stay away from smoking cigarettes, use of alcohol, other recreational drugs and friends who do all of the above.

Family meals and children

The best part about family meals is you don’t have to spend a lot of money or take out an unsecured loan to put together a fun, delicious dish everyone will enjoy. Sitting down and having meals with your children has proven to be hugely advantageous in helping them get ahead and going in the directions loving parents desire for their children. The CASA study found that children who did sit down and have five or more meals per week with their families had higher grades, felt their parents were proud of them and would easily confide in their parents over a classmate or friend.

Time spent together

The most delicious part of a family meal is the time spent together. That should be every family’s motto, and you don’t need personal loans or installment loans, either. Sitting around the table and having family meals together allows the opportunity for each family member to share at least one thing they have learned that day. They can share something positive that happened and discuss different life challenges and ways to overcome them.

The lost art of dinnertime

Many studies have proven that high levels of failure in kids have much to do with “the lost art of dinnertime.” So with that in mind, create a new rule in your home and make family meals a regular part of your daily routine. You are the household CEO, aren’t you? You can make it fun by symbolizing its value with a new dining room table. Even better, have your children come up with their own menu ideas for the next family meal.