This week’s ritual is intended to enhance enjoyable time together (DeFrain & Stinnett, 2008). Specifically, it is intended to help each family member 1) discover the importance of family rituals and customs and 2) feel strongly connected to his/her other family members, two of the qualities of enjoyable time together. Other qualities of enjoyable time together focus on fun and laughter, childhood memories and family stories, spending time together and hanging out with family members.
This week, the ritual I want you to try with your family is a family dinner. Family dinner is an important ritual that helps build enjoyable time together. Although there are many ways emerging adults can spend enjoyable time together with their families, family dinners are a good place to start. Family dinners allow family members to reconnect with each other, leaving behind other distractions (i.e., playing games on the cell phone, catching up on email and sending texts to those who aren’t there!). Dinner is a time to relax, laugh, tell stories and release some stress with the family members who are there, while also helping you develop a sense of who you are as a family. I sometimes feel like the time spent together is more important than the actual foods we put on the table to eat. Looking back, I am happy to say that I have had many fun, meaningful, joyful dinners with my family, even though most of the time, they were long distance family dinners via Skype or FaceTime.
This week, invite your family members to have a family dinner at a certain time. You can give your parent(s) a formal invitation in the mail if you want to make it something special or maybe just give them a call or email or text them and ask them have dinner with you. You might find a good time that works for your, maybe over the weekend, a time when no one will be too tired or stressed. But make sure that time works for your parents or other family members too! You also need to suggest a location. For example, you might suggest family members go out to a special restaurant or ask them what kind of food they prefer. If you choose the restaurant, tell them why it is special to you. As an alternative, you could invite your parent(s) to your place or have the dinner at your family’s house. If you propose your family’s house, tell them you’ll bring all the ingredients and do all the cooking and clean up. Or, if you think they’ll want to help, you can ask everyone to bring an ingredient and cook the meal together as a family. However you decide to approach the meal itself, the most important thing is to make it happen!
The first rule of this week’s ritual is to turn off the computer, the television, your tablet and your phone, unless of course, you’re using one of them to have family dinner with family members too far away to see in person because, let’s face it, sometimes getting everyone to the table can be difficult. If you live far away from you family members, don’t be discouraged. Having family dinner together in person may be hard but you can still use Skype or FaceTime to be together for dinner.
Download Skype here: http://www.skype.com/en/download-skype/skype-for-computer/
Or if you have a Mac computer, iPhone, iPad download FaceTime free from here: http://www.apple.com/mac/facetime/
Once your family members sit down together for the meal, as the host, explain why you want to minimize distractions, including television and cell phones. Before your meal, you may want to begin with a statement of gratitude for their willingness to join you for a family dinner. You might also start with a prayer, but if your family doesn’t pray, you could say a few words of thanks for the food or for the family members who helped provide or prepare the food. You can make the dinner feel more special by lighting candles or including a centerpiece, but none of that is necessary if you just want to focus on having fun together.
Whether you remember family dinners during your childhood as tense or happy, filled with conflict or storytelling, or a time when your parents laid down the law or they asked you for your input on family decisions, you can make this week’s family dinner about enjoyable time together by preparing some fun conversation starters. Adding interesting topics or discussion questions to your family dinner will family members focus reconnecting with each other. Stay away from general questions such as “How was school or work?” or “What did you do today?” Be more specific and playful. There are times when all families need some help getting enjoyable discussions started at the dinner table. If you’re not sure how to come up with your own conversation starters, try some of these:
1. What was your favorite tradition when you were a child? Did you try to pass it down to future generations? Will you?
2. What was your favorite childhood book? What was special about it? Who used to read it with you?
3. What was your very first job and who was your favorite coworker there?
4. How do you feel about social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp)? How do you think they affect your relationships with others?
5. Think of someone from your past you used to see on a daily basis but no longer see every day. Are you still in contact in other ways? If so, how? If not, would you like to be? Why or why not?
6. Who is your favorite musical group? Talk about the performers and which of their songs you like the best and why.
7. Who is your favorite athlete and why? How does that person inspire you?
8. Where was the last place you went on vacation? What was it like there? Would you go again?
If these conversation starters do not inspire you, you can find more suggestions here:
Some of the ideas are silly, and some are serious. The important thing is to get to know each other better and smile as you create memories with your loved ones!
As a host, you can provide all of the conversation starters, but you also can ask all the family members to contribute their own conversation starters. Either way, you may want to prepare the conversation starters before dinner by printing them on strips of paper and placing them all in a jar for each person to choose one after dinner has started. You can tell your family members that if they don’t want to answer the question they draw, they can pass and choose another one instead.
Before the dinner ends, you may want to take a moment to talk as a family about the importance of having family dinners together. You might even ask your family members to share a positive moment from the dinner, maybe when they felt strongly connected to the rest of the family. Take some time to share what you thought about the family dinner too. You may want to talk about what it was like to have a family dinner again or to spend time with family members, how you might continue to have family dinners and how you felt connected with your family members.
After dinner with your family, don’t forget to come back here and share your thoughts! Tell us who you invited and why, where you had dinner, what you ate, and how it went. What conversation starters, if any, did you use during your family dinner? How well did they work for your family? What family rituals or customs did you remember as important to your family when you were talking at dinner? What was one positive moment when you felt strongly connected to your other family members during your family dinner? Do you think you’ll have another family dinner again soon? Why or why not?
I look forward to reading your opinions soon!
Sources:
101 Conversation Starters. (2014). In Conversation Starters.com Retrieved from http://www.conversationstarters.com/101.htm
DeFrain, J., & Stinnett, N. (2008). Creating a strong family: American family strengths inventory. In NebGuide. Retrieved May 24, 2010, from http://www.ianrpubs.unl.edu/pages/publicationD.jsp?publicationId=1099
Markham, L.(2014). Citing Websites. In Aha!Parenting.com. 100 Conversation Starters for Family Discussions, from http://www.ahaparenting.com/parenting-tools/communication/family-discussions
Conversation Starters: Age 14-100. (2014).In The Family Dinner Project. Retrieved from
http://thefamilydinnerproject.org/tag/ages-14-100
Coincidentally we shared many of the same experiences as emerging adults, relocating numerous times and living apart from our families. My immediate family resides out of state. We take turns making the occasional holiday and vacation visit. I remain close to my family, however wish we all had more time to catch up with a phone call or Skype chat. Friday night I invited my mom to have dinner via Skype with myself and boyfriend. I often worry about her being on her own, as she still struggles with an empty nest.
ReplyDeleteWe both planned to cook Italian and relax with a glass of wine. The Skype session allowed for a tour of our new home. Topics of conversation included paint colors and wallpaper removal. My mom had gone through the same process of renovating her own home and had many useful tips to share. There had been talk of her visiting during our move, unfortunately our schedules didn't match up. This dinner helped us set a date for her visit in the near future!
Having her join us via Skype wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be. After about 15 minutes it felt as though she was sitting at our table! We all enjoyed the time we spent “face to face” and are looking forward to seeing each other in person in the next few weeks. I realize that I need to be more proactive in reaching out to my family, as life gets busy. Growing up family dinners were a ritual. All of our family members were expected to sit down, share their day, and ignore the phone calls. It’s unfortunate that this routine family custom has slowly disappeared over the years possibly due to divorce, careers, growing up and moving on.
Hi Megan, Thank you for your comment. Like u said, unfortunately family dinner ritual has slowly disappeared over the years. That is why I am trying to share information and resources to help address the specific needs of families with emerging adult children. Also, encourage the age group people to maintain this ritual. Sounds like you had a good time with ur family members. Hope you enjoy this journey, and hope see your comment in next week!
DeleteFriday night, my mom texted us and asked to come over for family dinner. This is something fairly common in my family. This dinner consisted of my dad, mom, three bothers, sister, brother’s wife, my boyfriend, and me. Mom made all the food and we all chipped in on setting the table and preparing. I told them about this assignment for my Building Family Strengths class and how I wanted us to have some good conversation and not rush through dinner. We went around the table discussing these questions for about an hour. This was a very enjoyable time for all of us and has been a ritual that has been practiced since I can remember. I am blessed to have my family all live so close and hold a high importance on family time.
ReplyDelete1. What was your favorite tradition when you were a child? Did you try to pass it down to future generations? Will you?
- My brother talked about this one, he shared that his favorite tradition was bed time stories with dad every night. He is about to be a father and talked about this being important to him and he will continue it with his own kids.
2. What was your favorite childhood book? What was special about it? Who used to read it with you?
-My favorite childhood book was Little House in the Big Woods, my sisters favorite book was Love You Forever. The book was special to me because it was one of the first chapter books I read alone.
3. What was your very first job and who was your favorite coworker there?
- My very first job was Boston Mills Ski Resort. My favorite coworker there was my brother. I loved getting to work with him and have that bonding time.
4. How do you feel about social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp)? How do you think they affect your relationships with others?
- This was a heated conversation at our dinner table. We talked for a long time about this topic. If it was up to my dad, there would be zero social media usage by our family. The rest of us came to general consensus that it has its pro’s and con’s. This conversation led into another lengthy conversation about social media being an easy outlet for bullying on an “anonymous” level. Two kids from my high school committed suicide last week and a lot was contributed to the level of social media bullying that was occurring.
Thanks for sharing !
- Leah
Like to hear about your family :) Interesting!
DeleteEvery week, my mom gets in touch with my immediate family about having dinner with each other one night that week. Our family dinner consisted of my mom, my dad, my fiancé, Stephen, my older brother, Derek, my twin brother, Kyle, and his girlfriend, Cheyenne. All of us were invited because it is a weekly tradition and we all like to stay connected with each other since we do not live together. We had dinner at my parents' house. We had moose steaks and salmon with baked potatoes, asparagus and garlic bread. Our meal went very well and was very delicious. We had some conversation starters, I mentioned to my family that these conversation starters helped with my Building Family Strengths assignment. The conversation starters we had were made up ourselves and some were from this blog.
ReplyDeleteBlog Conversation Starters:
1. What was your favorite tradition when you were a child? Did you try to pass it down to future generations? Will you?
-My brothers and I talked about our traditions as kids. Some of our favorite traditions were when we went to Florida every year and our grandpa would get us McDonald's breakfast or Dunkin Donuts. He would also take us to the pool in his association and let us sing out the windows. There are other family traditions that we have and I will pass them onto my future family.
2.How do you feel about social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp)? How do you think they affect your relationships with others?
--My parents both disagree on social media and feel that social media ruins individuals' relationships. I feel that social media does ruin relationships and it exposes personal life to the whole world, especially when social media sites are not "private." I did explain that yes, I do have social media sites, but I do not indulge my whole personal life on them and let the whole world know.
3. Where was the last place you went on vacation? What was it like there? Would you go again?
-My dad took this conversation. He explained his last "vacation" was going on a hunting trip to Texas with our hunting dog, Josie, and how he was exciting to go on another one with her soon. He explained how when he was there, the weather was horrible and Texas had an ice storm. There was 2" of ice on the ground and barely anyone could be on the roads with bumper to bumper traffic and ice storms.
Family Conversation Starters:
1. How was everyone's day?
-Everyone explained how their days were and what they did. Some of us even pointed out some positives and negatives of their day.
2. Has anyone seen any good movies lately?
-My twin explained how he has bought multiple movies within the past few weeks and explained how good the movies were to all of us and that we could borrow the DVDs and watch them.
The conversation starters worked well for my family. They helped to continue the conversation between us to not have an awkward silence. Some family rituals and customs I remembered that is important to my family when we were talking at dinner was when we were younger, my twin would tip his chair back and my mom would consistently tell him to stop or he would fall back and crack his head open on the tile floor. Every dinner, he gets told to not tip his chair back. Another custom within my family is that we have specific seats at the table and we stick to our custom and continue to sit in them whenever we have family dinners. One positive moment I felt strongly connected to my family during our family dinner was when we all relived memories as we were growing up. We will have another family dinner soon. My mom is hoping to have one this upcoming Wednesday. We will have one so that we can stay connected with each other.
Hope you enjoy your next family dinner soon:) I like to read your comment!
DeleteThis past Monday, I had my family sit down for a family dinner. We’re all so busy that it was nice to have a chance to relax and discuss what we have been doing for the past week. I set up the dinner the week before so everyone in my immediate family could come.
ReplyDeleteMichael (my brother) just started a job at Camp Bow Wow, which is a place where people can board their dogs when they go out of town. We all discussed how he likes the job. He said that he is enjoying it so far but the only thing that he doesn’t like waking up early to get to his early shifts since he is not a morning person.
With the Olympics starting, I asked who is your favorite athlete coming into the Olympics and how do you think they’ll do? Michael was the first one to answer this one. He is an avid snow boarder so he said that he thinks Shawn White will do really well and medal. I chimed in with figuring skating and I thought that the Russians were going to do really well. I’ve always liked Evgeni Plushenko, and thought he was going to kill his performance.
Another topic that we discussed was my mom volunteering at Positively Cleveland and how it’s going. My mom said that she likes the experience and meeting new people. It gives her something to do and now she doesn’t have to deal with our dogs all day.
I like the questions you been asked !Hope you enjoy your family dinner time!
DeleteMy mom and I had dinner tonight for Valentine’s Day at my mom’s house. She’s in an empty nest now and we had already planned this dinner last week. It really is rare now to have family dinners; I know I hardly have them anymore especially since I live on campus. We had crab legs and crab cakes that we made together. My sister was going to join via Face Time but she lives in New York City and had her own Valentine’s Day plans. Today was my first shadowing experience so I shared a lot about that. My mom and I are both in school so we also talked about the stresses and good test grades. The conversation starter I used was about social media. My mom is constantly on Facebook, way more than I am. She was even on it before dinner when she was supposed to be studying! It has become such a huge part of my generation and my mom even mentioned how much technology has changed (she’s a baby boomer) since she was my age. Before dinner, I put a picture of our meal on Instagram (oops). After I posted the picture, my mom started asking questions about Instagram and Twitter which started the conversation of social media. For the duration of our dinner, both of us were able to put the technology aside and enjoy a rare dinner together.
ReplyDeleteWhile we were talking, one ritual I remembered our family always doing is no phones at the table, way back when my parents were still together. Tonight I didn’t but I usually do since I don’t get yelled at for it anymore. However, I realized I don’t really give myself the opportunity to have conversations with my mom because I’m too wrapped up in the technology. One moment I felt really connected to my mom was when she said how much I have helped her with technology. I actually got her started on Facebook and have showed her a lot of things on her computer she otherwise wouldn’t know how to do. It felt good that I helped her in some way even though it wasn’t major. I think we’ll have another family dinner again soon. It is a chance for us to connect and catch up especially since I’m hardly home now.
It's interesting started the conversation of social media.Hope you enjoy you family dinner time with your Mom! Like to read your comment!
DeleteMy boyfriend recently moved to Chicago for culinary school at the beginning of the year, so I went to go visit him over the weekend. We decided to go grocery shopping and pick out our favorite foods so that he could show off his new culinary skills for me. It was the perfect opportunity to Skype my mom and sister while they had dinner as well. I called my mom the night before to set everything up. On Saturday night, we prepared dinner together and called my mom and sister. They were having spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread while we had pork chops, asparagus and mashed potatoes. It was interesting as first because I had never ate over Skype before so it was hard to pay attention to them while I was eating but I got the hang of it. We shared with my boyfriend that our family dinner tradition is to always share our peak and pit of our day with each other. I shared that my peak was that I got to shop on Michigan Avenue at all the fancy stores and my pit was that my boots got ruined from all the snow I had to walk through.
ReplyDeleteAfter, my sister and I shared family dinner memories from when we were little and we reminisced on old times together. It was interesting to step back and look at the bigger picture and compare family dinner with my family and my boyfriends family. I imagined what it would be like if we were all together and then figured it would probably get a little out of hand from all the loud voices and different personalities. After conversation, we walked around to show off the little studio apartment as my mom shared her experiences of Chicago with us. We shared cut out sugar cookies that my mom sent my boyfriend for Valentine's day and we all picked out the same movie to watch on netflix after we ended our Skype session. Being able to catch up with my mom and sister was just what I needed to set my busy life on hold and realize what is most important to me. Sharing family traditions with my boyfriend was fun and sparked a lot of conversation and laughter. Even though my mom and sister weren't physically with us it felt like we were all connected because we shared the same movie and dessert together. I am thankful for this idea and hopeful to be able to do it again soon or better yet, be able to all be together in person to share family dinner.
Thank you for sharing your story of your family dinner ritual. Hope you enjoy your family dinner time:)
DeleteFor my family dinner I used who I consider to be my "College Family". This family includes my roommate, Cassy, and my friend, Ben. We all spend a lot of time together and I am very closely connected to both of them. We had dinner in our apartment at the kitchen table, which we do not usually take the time to do. Cassy and I prepared dinner while Ben was in class. We made Chili and cornbread. For dessert we made cake. During dinner we used a few of the conversation starters listed above. We talked about family traditions, vacations, and other topics relating to our families. I learned new family traditions that my friends have done with their families. Their traditions gave me ideas of new activities to try with my own. We also talked about current events in our lives. This included our class work, free time, and anything else we could think of.
ReplyDeleteWe did not use any electronics at the dinner table and it was very relaxing to just sit and talk, distraction free. It made me really appreciate being able to spend time with them. I learned new things about them, even though I see them every day. We will definitely be having another family dinner soon. It was nice that we could all set our busy lives aside and be appreciative of each others' company. We all enjoyed eating the food that we worked to prepare, and we liked the uninterrupted conversations we were able to have.
I like your experience of your "College Family"!
DeleteI had a great experience with my college family doing this try it Tuesday. My roommate and I did our try it Tuesday together and invited over our close friend. We invited him because he is the third member of our little trio. We had dinner in our apartment around our dining room table. We enjoyed wine, chili, and corn bread and to finish off our family meal we had cake. Before our meal we took a trip to the grocery store together to pick out our meals ingredients. We kept it very down to earth and simple so we could spend more time enjoying and less time cooking. It went very well and I actually enjoyed this meal together. It was great to just disconnect from electronics and not be distracted by hockey games or texts.
ReplyDeleteWe used a couple conversation starters during our time together. We discussed our family traditions mostly which included family meals and spending general time together. We also discussed family vacations. The conversation starters didn’t really work so great for us because we enjoy to freely speak without guidelines. The family rituals that were important to us was just generally having dinner together in order to catch up with each other. It was a high note when we shared stories of the week with each other. It was great to each have a chance to speak uninterrupted and be listened too. I cannot wait for our next family dinner! We are in the works of planning our next one with an additional friend. We enjoyed spending our meal together and of course eating all the yummy treats.
It's interesting! I like to read your story!
DeleteWhat I consider my main family would be my boyfriend (who shares an apartment with me) and his parents. I am not as close with my family, so his parents are like my own Mother and Father. We arranged for them to meet us at our local Applebee's that we love to eat at due to the welcoming, comfy atmosphere and yummy food. We decided a saturday that I had off from work would be best, since my boyfriend and his parents always have weekends off as I am not so fortunate. They arrived before us, and we walked over to the table and sat down and thanked them for meeting us. We expressed how it was great to share a meal together since we don't get to see them as much as we'd like due to our busy schedules. We all had a few drinks while talking about our new apartment pros and cons and since they didn't get to see me for my birthday, they gave me my birthday card and gift and we shared memories of how it seems like yesterday when I first met their son and started dating him.
ReplyDeleteWe ordered our food, and asked his parents how their dog Ivy was doing. They talked to us about how they ordered her a nice memory foam dog bed and we laughed when they were explaining how it is almost like the size of a love seat and how it takes up a huge space in their living room. My boyfriend and I are on our phones a lot, (probably more than we should be), but for this dinner, we made sure they were on silent and put away and it was really nice to have face-to-face interaction since we talk to them on the phone a lot or Skype them. When we received our food, we each tried a bite of each others entree and his parents asked how my internship was going and how my classes were so far this semester. We finished up our meals, and expressed how much we missed them and how we need to make more effort to get together more often. Planning this meal together and actually following through with it was really enjoyable and made my boyfriend and I realize how much his parents support us and are always there for us. Having our electronics put away and actually spending quality time together was a great feeling and put us all in a better mood it seemed. We were able to forget about what was stressing us out in our lives for an hour or so and were able to laugh, just relax, and have a fun time. I look forward to sharing many more meals with them and someday, sharing dinners with them as their daughter-in-law.
You remind me my family. All my family are in China, so far away from me. I am close to my boy's family too, and his parents are like my own Mother and Father. We had a lot of great time together! Hope you enjoy the family dinner ritual with your boyfriend's family!
DeleteMy mother and I recently tried the family dinner ritual for "Try-it Tuesday" simply to catch up with one another. It has always been just me and her and we were always pretty close but with both of us working and going to school and me finding that I was two months pregnant about four months ago, we have been all over the place. We try to connect as much as possible but there is just not enough time in one day.
ReplyDeleteFor our dinner we decided to make a simple meal that consisted of green beans, basmati rice and fish. We chose something simple so that we could focus more on the conversation and enjoy ourselves. Throughout our conversation, we both found that we had really lost touch with one another. I had not really given much detail about me graduating next year, how my relationship has been going or the medical issues my baby faced. She had also failed to mention that she had been dating someone for a few months and how her student teaching program was going. It baffled me to think we had really drifted that far apart when our bedrooms were right across the hall. That family dinner really brought a lot of things to light for us.
I'm really glad I decided to do this particular family ritual because it helped me and my mother to catch up on a lot of things. Although we thought we were close and keeping up with each other, it turned out that we were actually losing touch. After our dinner we decided that maybe we should try to hold at least one detailed conversation with each other everyday or at least every few days but not more than a week.
Yes you have a great idea to hold at least one detailed conversation with each other everyday or at least every few days but not more than a week. hope you enjoy your family dinner ritual!
Delete