Family Dinners

Every year we conference with parents in the fall and spring. We talk about student achievement, basic, proficient, advanced. We discuss behavior issues. This year maybe we should talk about family meal times.

Encouraging parents to slow down and have regular family dinners with their children has all kinds of positive benefits. Studies show that children who eat with their parents 5 or more times per week engaged in fewer at-risk behaviors such as taking drugs, considering suicide, and premarital sex. As fall parent conference time comes around, we teachers should recommend having regular family meal times to the parents of our students. Parental involvement in a child’s life and in school is one of the greatest predictors of academic performance. Regular family mealtimes will help with the mission of our schools to help children be successful. For more on this topic, visit the BreakPoint.org post.