Bond With Your Children While You Dine

Kids

oi-Denise Baptiste

By Denise Baptiste

Tuesday, August 10, 2010, 14:41

Parents and children always share a special bond when given enough attention to each other. But when they grow to become young adults and enter the teenage world of unreal fantasies this parent child bond slowly decreases. Now according to a new study it is seen that you can still rekindle that special bond you once had with each other. Here is one way parents can keep up the communication with their teenage children and it is indeed simple .All you have to do is to sit down together for 'dinner'.The study has revealed that , eating meals together can help protect against this conversation dip.

The kids who frequently dined with their loving parents when they were in the sixth grade have noticed to see a less change of communication with their folks over three and a half years than those of the kids who rarely or never ate dinner with their parents in the sixth grade.
Jayne Fulkerson a study researcher at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing has stated that, “ Even if they''re less likely to have meals with the family as they go into high school, if they''re having them when they''re younger, it''s still a point of connection and it"s a good thing and can have a lasting impact."

These results were based on the surveys of nearly 5,000 middle school students in Chicago Public Schools and thus they were surveyed at the beginning and the end of the sixth and seventh grade. The participants were questioned as to how frequently they dined with their parents and the results were never, hardly ever , sometimes, a lot or all the time.

Fulkerson has said that, “ You might have a better sense of what''s going on in their lives and be able to understand what they''re going though more." This was noted after the kids were asked if their parent-child conversation lasted more than 10 minutes.

Family meals are a good opportunity to stay connected with you children and Fulkerson suggested to avoid issues and topics like that of homework or grades , that might bring up a conflict for the relationship that you share.
The results thus show that having a healthy family meal can help protect you in so many ways besides being healthy.