Why Family Dinner Still Matters: The Importance Of Gathering Around The Table

The Power of Family Meals: Building Connection Around the Table

In this episode of the Home and Marriage Podcast, we talk about why eating together as a family matters and how it strengthens connection at home. We share a bittersweet parenting season—our oldest is preparing for college visits and our son’s basketball season is nearing the state playoffs—which reminds us how valuable regular family rhythms like shared meals can be. We describe family dinner as a cornerstone habit that impacts many other areas of life, and we reflect on our different upbringings with mealtimes.

We discuss the real obstacles (busy schedules, screens, and isolation), and we share our family’s practical guidelines. We talk through how family meals look in different stages—from high chairs and picky eaters to deeper teen conversations—and how table time creates normal proximity for meaningful discussions that might not happen otherwise. 

00:00 Welcome to the Podcast
00:28 Bittersweet Parenting Season
01:50 Why Family Meals Matter
02:48 Growing Up With Dinner
05:00 Busyness and Screen Barriers
09:38 Stages and Table Lessons
11:56 Conversation Starters and Teens
15:35 Simple Meals and Making It Special
19:18 Research Backed Benefits
21:22 How to Start This Week
26:08 Final Encouragement and Wrap Up

Transcript

Lennon: 0:01

This is the Home and Marriage Podcast with Lennon and Christal Noland, where we help couples become better at home and stronger together. We are husband and wife, parents and ministers who want God's best for our home and for yours.

0:17

Welcome friends, wherever you are and whoever you are. We're glad that you're listening today and I'm here with my bride, my lover, my baby's mother, as I like to say. And my boo. I just wanted to point out to our listening friends that we are in a very bittersweet moment as parents. Yes, we are. We're in a new season, our oldest one is gonna be in college next year, and she's a senior in high school, so we're looking right now at colleges and she is praying and looking into what school she'd like to be at. Right. So this coming weekend, you're gonna take her on the first of what will be a few college visits, and I'm gonna be outta town for ministry while you take her to this. So I'm just hoping you can get through it without me there to, to hug you and tell you it's gonna be okay. Well, I'm not, I am not going there mentally yet. We're just touring a college. That's the way I think of it. We're just touring a college maybe. Maybe she'll decide to stay home. Maybe so, no, she will not. It's just a decision time, but nothing's concrete at this moment, so I'm not gonna get emotional hopefully. I bet you will. I bet you will. At least a little bit. And another bittersweet thing, I mean, it's here at the end of basketball season. The state playoffs for our son are coming up here, uh, in a week or so, and we are going to have back in our possession for. A week that are currently given to basketball, whether it's practice or games. So you know what, that's gonna make more possible in regular, what is that, Lennon? This is the ultimate transition family meals together, which is what we're talking about today. That's right. So today's show is about eating together as a family. And why would we do a whole podcast episode about that Linen, why is that so important? Well, it's really important because it's one of those things that shows up in positive ways in a bunch of other areas in life. Mm. This is what people that study habits call a cornerstone habit of a family. That eating together on a regular basis has huge dividends that we sometimes overlook. And so I think it's worth our conversation today. This makes me think of watching a lot of those old shows like Andy Griffith Show or um, little House on the Prairie or whatever shows that we watch maybe with the kids when they were younger that were just wholesome, good shows and there was always a scene with them eating dinner around the table. Yeah. That was very common. Yeah, that's really true. What about for you and your family growing up Was, was eating dinner together like at a table? Was that. Something normal for you? Yeah, it was pretty normal. It was not every night of the week especially as me and my brother were in high school or we were older and we had activities in the evenings or places to go. But for the most part we would, we would have some meals together and so yeah, we did. I re, I do remember eating dinner around the table together and kind of checking in on everybody's day and you know, having different conversations. Yeah. I would say for my family, growing up, eating together was much more of a, it was more of a holiday thing. Mm-hmm. Than it was a regular occurrence. I can't count. A lot of times that I can remember actually sitting down at a table together and eating. But I was exposed to this during a residential internship I did during my college years. Where I lived with a family, with young children and we had more meals together in my first few weeks of living with them than I had had with my family growing up. It just, it just wasn't something that, it wasn't something that we did a lot or that we emphasized, but even for that brief time in those young adult years, it had a huge impact on me. Did that feel weird to you, having meals with. A family that wasn't your family and for the first time when that wasn't a common thing for you, did that seem weird at first to you? What was that like? It was, it was weird at first. Like at first I thought they did it because there was me and there was another student that was living with this family. They had a nice size home, and so they opened up their home to two students. And so for me, I was assuming, okay, they must be doing this to get to know us. It's kind of a special occasion, and I don't want to even begin to say we ate together four or five times a week, but. It was just, it was very common practice. We sat down, we ate dinner together, and so it was odd, but I fell in love with it really quickly. That's really neat. I'm glad you had that opportunity to, to see that in action and be a part of that as a young adult, that's pretty cool. But you know, it, it really is hard sometimes to commit to this. This takes some sacrifice to put this in our schedules, don't you think? Yeah, it really does. I think that it's really easy not to do, and not only is it easy not to do, it's easy to, to justify because we're all going so many different directions. I don't feel like we are a family that is. Overly scheduled in a million different directions, but still saying that we're going a million different directions, whether it's for basketball, uh, our oldest working a part-time job, whatever. It can be really hard to get everyone in the same place at the same time. Yeah, it really can. This is a lot easier to do when your kids are young. It's really easy to do this with your children because they really do love eating together. I think they're sad when you don't get to eat together. They're more sad than, you know. I guess teenagers would be, sometimes don't seem like they really want that, but can I just say that I really have seen this in our family, but when our, we do have dinner together in the week, we, we usually enjoy one another or enjoy the time As much as teenagers may not seem like they wanna do it, I can guarantee you that they will look back and notice how important that was. And thankful to have a family who wanted to be together and eat together. Yeah, and we've seen that develop too. I mean, everybody would very easily kind of isolate to their own screen and eat their meal and kind of be with themselves. I think kind of modern teenagers could easily go in that direction and adults, but we've never not been happy whenever we set the table and set everybody down, there are almost always good conversations coming out of it, and not every night is a peak moment. Whenever we sit down and eat dinner with the family, sometimes we get it eaten and we move on, but it's always good. And I think there are a lot of forces that kind of go against it. We talked about the, um, just the busyness of schedules, but I think also the time that people spend on screens now, that it'd be very easy for everyone to, I mean, I remember this. In the nineties, I had a television in my room, and I already mentioned that we didn't sit down at our dinner table a lot. What was most common was I would make my bowl of tuna helper and walk down the hall, go to my room, shut the door, and eat in front of the television. And so that is another thing that can kind of keep us isolated and make specific times of connection all the more important. And I feel like you're gonna laugh at me right now. I'm just imagining you with your tuna helper in your room with your door closed. I mean, I'm sure your room smelled really good after that, and I still love tuna helper and it grosses everybody out, but it's so good. I think of, you know, how the TV tray was invented so you could sit and watch a show together and have your food. And I'm not saying that. we. Don't eat every meal just around the table. No. I mean, we have had, nights in our week where we will turn on a fun show and eat dinner together. So we're not saying that that's just wrong or bad, and we've had to check ourselves with this too, where we've had to come back to, Hey, let's have it at the table, no screens. And we do have a rule at the table where you can't bring your phone to the table and you can't be on your phone at the table. We take that part out so we don't get distracted. Yeah, there's, I think there's a big price to pay for disconnection, for not having the casual moments where we're just sitting around eating, talking, and one of those is that normal conversations end up feeling challenging, and this is kind of a heel that I'll die on this idea that if we wanna be able to talk to our kids about pretty much anything in the world. Then we need to be willing to talk to our kids just about normal things through the course of the day. Otherwise, what can happen is you have birthed these children and you feel like you're trying to cross a sociological divide to have a conversation. You know, how do I connect with the Gen Z as a millennial, but these are the kids and we're meant to be able to talk to our kids. And you know, great things can come out of family dinners. I mean, that's why we're having this episode is to talk about. The good that does come out of these moments. I think we can definitely think, oh, well it's just a meal. But there's so much more to it, especially as parents, we have the way of thinking of it as more than just a meal together. We're not just here to just eat food, you know? There's more to it. I remember, let's talk about some of the. The times when our kids were little. Maybe let's start with some stages of this, you know? Yeah. Because it does look different in different stages. It really does. I mean, you've got the high chair stages, you know, you've got the, the well before that, you got the stage where mom is holding the baby, or dad's holding the baby, and someone's trying to just eat a meal. We're talking about when the, we had the kids around the table. I remember our youngest. She had this thing for a while where she would just always fall off her chair, and I'm talking about, you know, bit too big to really be in a high chair, but she found a way somehow to just fall off of her chair during a, during a meal. Uh, so many times it happened in the house. I remember it happening at a pizza restaurant. I remember it happening. At a hamburger place somehow, some way she was gonna end up out of the chair and in the floor. I do remember this one moment that was hilarious. I wanna say it was at Olive Garden and we were eating actually out at a restaurant and she fell off her chair and people all around kind of gasped and looked over at her.'cause I think everybody was assuming, oh no, she's gonna be hurt. She's hurt. And she just puts her, she's on the floor, but she puts her arm up and she says, and gave a thumbs up and gave the thumbs up. And she says. I'm okay. It's okay. You know. Anyways, that's just funny stories, but there's always gonna be some kind of, um, obstacle or maybe a hard thing you deal with at every stage. And when they're little, sometimes it's, they're picky and they don't wanna eat the food that you gave them or complain, you know, they might complain or whine at the table or get fussy. But I will just say, I think those moments when they're young, what you're doing is you're teaching them that this is important for us to be together, eat together, talk. You know, really just be in each other's company. And then as they get older, they're able to do more. And that could look like you're teaching them to serve one another. Maybe asking one of the kids, would you help me set the table? Or will you go put the napkins on the table? And you could do this from when they're really young, you know, to when they're even teenagers. But it's really, I think, showing each other. We're here to serve one another and to be. To be a part of this family in a serving loving way. Yeah. And I think one of the best parts of the family dinners is the conversations that come out of it. Mm-hmm. And this looks different in different stages, but asking your kids, what was the best part of your day? Kind of high, low game, what was the high point, what was the low point? And depending on their age, they may engage more enthusiastically, and topics can change a lot depending on, again, the age and stage of your kids. Yeah. I think asking those questions that. Can't give a yes or no answer, but an actual, they have to talk a little more. Yes. Or give a little more detail. Once that gets going, they might, especially when they're amongst siblings, I feel like they start to really want to share more and more. And we did this for a little while, that we had this little game I think it was like a table conversations thing, and it was just little papers that are topics of conversations or questions we could ask one another. But we did that for a while just to kind of get some questions flowing. So I would say mom and dad, if you. Need good questions. You could always go to chat GPT or somewhere online or Google to find a list of questions to ask around the table for fun and get the conversation flowing, especially if you just aren't sure what to ask about. Yeah, those kind of games, they had their time and they were really effective. And now with kind of older teenagers, sometimes the conversations we may have at the table have a little more gravity to them. Mm-hmm. They have a little more depth. Well, in the teen years, I will just say this is when those opinions and ideas are really starting to form and to the, like the person that they are. And they may bring up a subject or, or talk about something that could surprise you and. You may not agree with what your teenager is saying, but it may give you a chance or an opportunity as a parent to speak into that. Otherwise, that conversation may never have come up. And sometimes it's an opportunity to say, well, here's, why I believe this way. And to, to do it in a way that's calm and loving and teaching, and doesn't mean that you're gonna change. The ways that they think about certain things. But it could be an, a great opportunity as a parent to guide and lead them in that conversation. Yeah, and I love that you said it, it, the conversation might not have come up otherwise. It is the gift of just normal proximity that makes those kind of conversations possible. So,

Lennon: 14:18

Did you know at homeandmarriage.com you can get our six Habits of Happy Couples Course. A lot of couples think that what makes for a better marriage is grand gestures, especially if you're in a time where you're a little disconnected or things are a little tense. We can feel like we need to do something huge and big to get things back on track. That's actually not the case. A happy marriage comes down to the little things, the everyday things. It comes down to habits. And so that's what's behind our six Habits of Happy Couples course. You've got six distinct habits that I teach on, and then Christal and I unpack those together. Each section has a PDF that is meant for you and your spouse to be able to talk through, some of the material and come up with your own ideas about how to improve your connection and improve your marriage. This course is$70, but for you as a listener of the podcast, if you use. Coupon code Podcast 20, you'll get$20 off of that. And so that is a better marriage for less than the price of a date night. So again, for podcast listeners, code podcast 20 at homeandmarriage.com. Get your course today.

15:35

Is every meal a great family event? Very fancy, very well thought out. No, and I think that's the beauty of this. I, I don't think you need to be the best cook in the world or the fanciest dishes to. For your kids to want to come to eat at the table. I will say there's some benefit in getting to cook some homemade meals. There's something about that that I think brings something special to the table. One of our favorite recipes is cowboy soup, which is really just a taco soup. It's really simple to make. Anybody could make it, That's one meal that everybody does love. Yeah. There's not a lot of those ride it in stone. Right. But it really is something that we all enjoy. And so home-cooked meals are so good for us. I think it makes us feel better after a long day. It's comforting, just good for our bodies. And so I think that gives the opportunity to make a meal or have something that. Isn't fast food all the time, but I think you can make it fun We've done that at times. You've done a great job with this. Uh, every once in a while, whenever a meal. Is a, a little on the, it's not cowboy soup, if it's steaks or something like that. You've been known to pull out the candles every now and then. Just arrange the table a little nicer, light it up, create a little atmosphere, and that's really been a way to make a normal dinner be a little. I don't know, a little extra sauce on it. It's, it's always been good. Everybody seems to respond well whenever you take the time to do those kind of things. Yeah, I think those things really matter, we don't want y'all to feel like you need to make every meal special in a theme night or a candle at night. It's just every now and then doing that I do think helps bring us together in a more special way. And so it may just be something you could have fun with too. You may get your kids involved in it. Maybe they can help you cook the meal. Or come up with the idea of the meal. Um, there's a lot of ways you can do it to make it special and to make it something that your family really looks forward to. Yeah, you have a book that you really liked from one of your favorite authors. Can we just speak a goal, speak it out there that one day? We would love to have Sally Clarkson on the show here with us. I know she's like my, I'm a fan girl of Sally Clarkson. I love a lot of her writings and teachings, but she did write this book called The Life-Giving Table and people who follow her know of this book, but it's, nurturing faith through feasting one meal at a time. I've learned a lot from her over the years and having meals together has always been really important to us. And getting to hear her teach on this and she wrote a whole book about it. I mean, if you are wanting to implement this into your family life, this could be a really good resource for you. But she said this once, this is in the book and I really love what she said, but. Engaging with and enjoying all persons in the family as they are, no matter what stage or age is essential to build a healthy emotional atmosphere. Listening to their fears, laughing at their jokes, seeking to understand their dreams, sympathizing with their fears and hurt feelings, and making sure they always know who they are in. Family and in Christ. And so I really love the way that she, she thinks of these mills together. It's, it's really a time where if we're not connecting through the day as a family, this is a time we can really connect it can be filled with laughter, it can be filled with encouragement. There may be stuff that we said like earlier that pops up that we could address. Um, so it's more than just a meal. It is that you're, you're building that healthy. Atmosphere for your family. It's huge. Well, let me share a couple of things, that I came across in getting ready for the episode. There's an endeavor called the Family Dinner Project. Their website is the family dinner project.org. Uh, they're based out of Boston, Massachusetts, and they are just really a hub for a lot of the research that's been done into this habit and a few benefits that we haven't mentioned. Kids who start eating dinners together with family. Are less likely to be overweight later. Parents who develop a dinnertime ritual feel more satisfied with marriages. Uh, I'm just gonna go through a handful of things. I won't read, all of them here, but children feel more connected with siblings and parents. There's even a strong link between family dinners and academic performance. Even more so than homework or sports. And, and that's really interesting. That kind of goes back to this whole idea of a keystone habit. There are some things we do that are important that give life to other things. And then a lot of the things that we worry about, especially with older teens, risky behaviors, uh, substance abuse, eating disorders, teenage pregnancy. All of these things trend in a positive direction, meaning they're less frequent in families that eat dinner together on a regular basis. And so I don't know necessarily if it's the habit of dinner that takes care of all those things, or the habit of dinner together indicates a family atmosphere that is maybe a little protective from some of those temptations and negative outcomes. But it's incredibly important. Yeah, I think it, really has a lot to do with the connection that is formed over a meal with your family. And when you're connected well with your family and you have good relationships, you have a mom and dad that love one another, or a mom that maybe a single mom, she's just taking care of her kids. But it's important that they all get together. I think there's just something really healthy about that, and it's gotta affect the other areas of our lives. Yeah, that's really true. okay, crystal, so say there's a mom listening and she'd love to get this started, but right now it's office reruns and you know, eating in front of the TV sounds like really overwhelming to get started or say, we sit at the table, what do we do again? Where do I start? What would you say? I say to start where you can maybe have a goal of what you would like to see in your family per, you know, dinners per week or meals per week. You've got seven dinners in the week. That's possible. But you also could do this, I think as a Saturday lunch or a Sunday lunch. Yeah. That still counts, you know, so start where you can, Set aside a couple evenings in the week that you're like, for sure on these evenings, there's nothing going on. We're not going anywhere. We're gonna protect that time. put it on your family calendar. Maybe if you have older teens or, um, you and your husband are trying to do this together, and so you're putting it on the calendar so you see this. We are gonna be home and we're gonna eat. Even menu planning can really help with this. And just saying, Hey, on Tuesday night we're gonna eat cowboy soup. On Thursday night we're gonna have baked chicken or something, whatever it is. And then you already have that figured out because that's a lot of the battles just figuring out what you're going to eat. Yeah, you're right. I think another good kind of a ground rule of we're gonna get together and again, no screens and if you want your kids to put down their phones or not have the iPad at a table, you as a mom or dad have to put down your phones. You have to lead with that. Yeah. I have been called out by our kids before. Dad, what are you doing? And what was I doing? I was scrolling an email whenever I thought they weren't paying attention because something not nearly as important as dinner with my family was apparently looming. But we, we've got a lead in that. Sit aside the screens. Yeah, put your phone in another location, put it on do not disturb. The world's not gonna end for that one hour or however long you have your meal. So that's a good, that's a good, uh, role. I think it's important. Also, we can. Wait until everyone's at the table to start eating. Yeah, that's, that should be pretty easy. But especially with young, hungry boys. Not always the, I mean, and girls too. Well. And girls too. I think within our family we have a child who I will not name, I won't even narrow down the gender who I frequently have to say, and Lord bless what they have already eaten. We used to call those sin bites, you know, as a joke, like you take some bites before the meal and everybody's, um, waiting to pray. You just took some send bites. I've never heard that before. That's pretty good. It's a joke though. It's totally not serious. Well, another thing, we talked about this before, but asking questions, maybe think of some things you might wanna ask them. Here's something I really love that you do, and it's that high low you, you mentioned it earlier, but the question of the best part of your day or what was a hard part of your day, but you asked this question frequently when we have dinners together. Yes. And, and I think it just helps conversation get going in a, in a low stakes way. That is, that is easy to get moving on. So Start where you can, no screens don't start eating until everyone's sitting. Ask good questions, but, and before the meal pray. I think mealtime prayer sometimes gets a bad wrap. It's treated like it's always just to check the box thing and get it over with, but I think mealtime prayer is an opportunity to, it teaches values to your family without. Being like a teachy dad. Whenever you maybe shouldn't be a teachy dad or mom, you're honoring God. You're thanking him for your time with your kids and your spouse. It, it builds up the value in a holy way. Yeah, I think it's really important, even when you're in public to pray before your meal. But I will say in public we tend to make that short and sweet so people can eat and we're not, you know, taking up everybody's time, but. At the table at home, that's a perfect opportunity as you pray, to pray for your kids, to pray for your spouse, to Thank the Lord for the food that everything he's provided. Okay, well we have one more thing that we think is important. And I think this is mostly important because you're teaching your kids, like again, you're teaching them to all contribute to the house and all be a part of it in serving. And so everyone cleans up after themselves. It's not up to mom to go around and get everybody's dishes and gather them up and do all the work herself. So I think we teach them, Hey, go clean your dish, put it in the dishwasher, whatever. Your method is, but it's important that we all do our part. agreed. Mom is your mom. Mom is not your maid. Oh, amen. Amen. So friends, that's our encouragement. Just sit at the table, you and your kids talk a little bit, eat a little bit. It's not rocket science, and yet it's incredibly powerful. So friends, don't forget to follow or subscribe, so you never miss an episode. We drop new ones every Tuesday. If today's conversation encouraged you, would you take a minute and share this podcast with a friend? It really helps more people find the show and join our community. You can visit home and marriage.com for more resources, like our Six Habits of Happy Couples Course, and if you'd like us to come speak at your church or event, you can schedule us through the website. You can also follow along on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. All of the links are in the show notes. Thank you for joining us again on the Home and Marriage Podcast. We really do believe that home can be your favorite place. We'll be back again next week for more encouragement and wisdom to help you become better at home and stronger together.