The Magic of Eating Together

You want your children to be happy, right? I mean, do I really have to ask? And drug and alcohol abuse ravages young lives, right?
So what if I told you that you could help keep them away from these addictions by doing something as simple as sitting with them at dinner a few times each week? It’s true and it’s probably the best deal you are going to encounter today.
Columbia University in New York studied families who eat dinner together and found that teenagers are twice as likely to try marijuana, start smoking, or abuse alcohol if they eat dinner with their families less than three times per week. (This is why they launched Family Day on the fourth Monday in September back in 2001.)
What is so magical about eating dinner together? Well, to do so properly, you have to turn off the TV and walk away from the magazines, paper, and computer. This way, you can look your children in the eyes. Now, engage in the lives of your family. Give your children your attention and see if they will not give you theirs. You have made a conscious decision to spend time with them. You have chosen them over everything else you could be doing. Your children are aware of this at an early age. They have been chosen by you and they know it.
It is a daily decision that parents must make, and each time you choose to give your children your attention, they feel just a little more special. They know how much they really do mean to you because you have proven it once again.
We usually eat during the news hour and my children know I’m a news junkie. So when I choose them over the news, I earn the right to enter their lives and become part of their decision-making. They know I sacrificed for them and that means a lot. Now, when I mention how important it is to say no to drugs – and yes to faith – I’ve earned the right to do so.
The kids know they are holding their parents captive, so they can talk about anything they want. We try to keep dinner upbeat and positive, but we also remember that we are their parents and not their friends. So, we might laugh about something that happened that day one minute, then remind them of table manners the next. We have to referee sometimes, when a disagreement breaks out, but the point is, we are together, engaged in each other’s lives, and purposefully working together to make our family better.
As children get older, this is going to be more and more difficult, so start when they are young and hang on to dinnertime as long as you can. If you can’t do this because of your schedule, find some time each week to give your undivided attention. That’s the point. Life is never simple and we have to work with what we’re given.
Children that feel connected to their families are not looking for something else to fill that void in their lives. Their esteems are healthier, and their power to say no to peer pressure is stronger. They know that whatever they do, they are going to have to look at their parents or guardians across the dinner table.
The magic of the dinner table is not in the eating of the food, it’s the time we spend making eye contact. It’s our choosing them and giving them our ears. Make the choice and see if doesn’t help them in their own decisions later.

The Number One Cause of Death in America

Do you know the number one cause of death in America? You might guess heart disease and according to the National Center for Health Statistics, you would be right. But you would be wrong. You might guess cancer. Sure enough, cancer will take more than a half-million lives this year. Accidents rank fifth at just more than one hundred thousand each year.
The number one cause of death in America is murder. Surprised? Americans murder more than a million babies every year. Estimates are we murder about three thousand, seven hundred every day. In other words, nearly as many humans die in the womb every single day as American soldiers have died in the entire Iraq war. Let me say that again: 3,800 American soldiers have died in Iraq in four years of fighting, but 3,700 unborn children die every day back at home.
This subject is bad enough, but it gets worse. Do you know why those children die? 93% die because they are an inconvenience to their mother. Do you know which mothers are aborting their children? 60% are white and 38% are middle class. America is bad, but the rest of the world is even worse. World-wide, the average is every single woman on the planet will have one abortion.
This is horrible, so why am I writing this? Because I wonder why we think we can ask God to bless us as a country when we are stomping on the Sixth Commandment and up to our necks in an all-out slaughter of innocents. Do we really think God is pleased with us? Do we really think we can get away with this?

Right On Time

I love these Spiderlillies. Someone who lived in our house before we moved here planted them. I didn't even know they were there - waiting to surface - until our first Autumn in our home. They come up and bloom every fall. What was amazing this year is that they surfaced last week, then bloomed on the first day of Autumn. We could have set our clocks by them. Now, that's obedience to their creator! They will bloom for a couple of weeks, then disappear until next fall when they'll appear again. Right on time.

Defying Gravity

My wife took this amazing picture of Savannah and me "floating" above the trampoline. I had just done a "seat drop", which bounces us high above the canvas. It looks like we were defying gravity, and for a moment, I guess we were.

We jumped on the trampoline Monday night after we ate dinner together on the patio to celebrate Family Day. Right after this, I threw the football with David, my son. He can throw a mean, tight spiral.

Mornings With Lorri and Friends

I had the privilege of being a guest on Lorri Allen’s radio show this morning. Lorri is the host of Mornings With Lorri and Friends on Sirius Satellite Radio, channel 161. If you ever get a chance to listen, she does a terrific job hosting the show. It’s on every weekday from 7 to 8 a.m., ET.
Lorri’s boss, Scott Miller, was co-hosting this morning and the three of us talked about the importance of sitting together at the family dinner table several times each week.
You can see from yesterday’s blog that yesterday was Family Day – A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children™. This phrase is a trademark of Columbia University in New York, which launched Family Day seven years ago.
Scott admitted his family sits together at dinner, but always has the TV on while they eat. I commented that the TV has become a member of the family, but we need to turn it off a few times each week so that we can give our kids our undivided attention during those precious few moments together.
You can hear the conversation here. Thanks again to Lorri for having me as a guest on her show.

Family Day

Today is Family Day. Here is some information about it from the official website:

Family Day — A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children™ is a national movement to remind parents that what their kids really want at the dinner table is THEM! Family Day encourages parents to frequently eat dinner with their kids and be involved in their children’s lives. The conversations that go hand-in-hand with dinner help parents learn more about their kids’ lives and helps them to better understand the challenges their kids face.
The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University launched Family Day in 2001 after CASA’s research consistently found that the more often children eat dinner with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, drink or use drugs. Family Day is celebrated on the fourth Monday in September.

The benefits of frequent family dinners:
CASA’s 2006 report The Importance of Family Dinners III found that compared to kids who have fewer than three family dinners per week, children and teens who have 5-7 family dinners per week are:
-At 70 percent lower risk for substance abuse;
-Half as likely to try cigarettes or marijuana,
-One third less likely to try alcohol;
-Half as likely to get drunk monthly.
-Kids who frequently eat dinner with their families are also likelier to have better grades and confide in their parents.
-It is never too early to start the family dinner tradition. Begin making family dinners a regular feature of your daily routine today!

Here are some other important things you can do to keep your kids off drugs:
-Set a good example.
-Know your child’s whereabouts, activities and friends.
-Set fair rules and hold your child to them.
-Maintain open lines of communication.
-Surround your child with positive role models.
-Learn the signs and symptoms of teen substance abuse and conditions that increase risk.

I plan to eat dinner with the family tonight. I hope you are going to support this, too.

Family Night!

We played the Disney version of Monopoly tonight. It was fun, but it didn't take long for David to begin to wipe the rest of us out. That guy is hard to beat at this game. We went for ice cream, then came back and played. It's good for the kids to still be young and at home on Friday nights. I know the day will come when we wish for moments like these again.