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Family Day — in your family

Americans have been celebrating Family Day — A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children (this year Monday, Sept. 28) for more than a decade. The tagline is simple and to the point: "What your kids really want at the dinner table is YOU!" A decade's worth of research reinforces this idea. Families are our bedrock. They anchor us when times are bad. They give us a place to celebrate when things are going well. They help us understand where we belong in the world. And simple, everyday meals are where we act out what it means to be a family — where we nurture each other, enjoy each other's company, measure our days.

You don't have to be a great cook, a huge brain, a child-rearing expert. All you have to be is the person who cares — and who demonstrates that caring by spending consistent, dependable time with your kids.

The dinner table is an obvious place to spend that time. When we eat together, we can set the mood as well as the table. We can check in with each other about how our day has gone. We can go over plans, reminisce, tell stories, joke, imagine, have fun.

The organization behind Family Day is CASA: the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Their mission is to keep kids away from drugs and harmful behaviors. A decade ago, when they interviewed teens and their parents to try to understand how best to help them, they were surprised to find out that the most important variable in teenagers' lives was whether or not they regularly shared meals with their families.

They found that kids who ate dinner with their families most nights did better in life than those who had family dinners one or two nights a week. And those kids did better than teens who shared no family meals. That mealtime variable turned out to be more important than whether kids got good grades in school, or went to church. Ever since, CASA has continued its surveys. Results still show the central role of family meals.

So how will you spend this Family Day? Will you let your kids know how important it is to get together regularly? Will you see if your kid's school will join in this effort, by cutting back on homework and after-hours activities for the evening, or by publicizing this special time? Check the CASA website, www.CASAFamilyDay.org. You can order brochures, download sample letters, placemats and recipes, get ideas.

Sure, it's nice to celebrate big events together. But much of a family's strength comes from just being together, day after day, evening after evening, year after year.

This year, for one night, celebrate your family with a family meal.

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