Here’s the scene, we’re out on our weekly supply trip for the business, more often than not our youngest son is tagging along. We stop to grab a bite and the hostess of the fine eating establishment shows us to our table. After perusing the menu we relax. What happens next? We each pull our smartphones from our pockets and stare at our screens.
This scene is repeated countless number of times everyday across the world, in restaurants and homes in every city you can imagine. The ability to be connected to the outside world through our devices has had a profound effect on how we interact with our friends and family. Many times in a negative way. We think that it gives us the ability to stay in touch with individuals far away when some of the most important discussions happen with the people sitting directly across from you.
We are no different than many parents, with the hectic schedules we have between our business and three active sons the goal is to make meal time as quick and unobtrusive as possible to get on with our busy lives. But in doing so there have been times we have sacrificed really being together and discussing the days’ events. Combine that with the distractions that our phones and tablets cause and you can lose touch with one another’s lives. And is that tweet or like more important than talking to each other and learn of their dreams and goals. I think not.
There’s a movement happening! One that challenges you to take one day, no just one meal a week to Disconnect to Reconnect with your family. To make the commitment all your family needs is to take the pledge to share at least one technology free meal a week.
We’ve taken the pledge!
Here are a few facts…
- Studies show that kids who eat with their families often are happier than those who don’t.
- Family traditions are often born during family meals.
- Daily mealtime communication strengthens the family bond. It’s also how generations pass along cultural and ethnic heritage.
One of our favorite dinner meals is to have breakfast for dinner. There’s just so many options that you can serve that everyone loves it and we’ve got a great giveaway for you…
One (1) Lucky Pocket Change Gourmet Reader Will Win The Following
- a Presto Jumbo Cool Touch electric griddle
- a 7-piece kitchen utensil set with stand
- Family Talk conversation game
- Smucker’s Strawberry Natural Squeeze jam
- JIF Creamy Peanut Putter
- JIF Chocolate Hazelnut Spread
- Folger’s Classic Roast
- Hungry Jack Breakfast Syrup
- 2 packs Hungry Jack Complete Pancake and Waffle Mix
- 2 packs Martha White Banana Nut Muffin Mix
- Crisco No-Stick Cooking Spray
- Martha White All-Purpose Flour
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44 Comments
Due to life being so busy, my favorite tradition is sitting down together for pizza night on the weekend! That is one of the few days we can all sit down together.
Sitting together around the table with a great comfort food meal, talking and laughing and being together 🙂
Everyone in the family loads their own dishes in the dishwasher so it doesn’t fall on me after dinner.
we eat our evening meal together every night & share about each of our daily happenings, good or bad
We love it when everyone has a part in the meal preparation and then everyone has a part in the cleanup – family that works together stays together!
The whole family has dinner together daily.
I grew up eating Swedish pancakes for supper fairly often, with lingonberry jam and powdered sugar, since the 1960s. We had so many buttermilk pancake breakfasts and I came to love eggs and bacon with maple syrup. I am so glad to have found your website, and today received my first newsletter — here I am! Thanks.
Beginning our family meal with a prayer!
I cook alot of Italian. Mexican comes second
Meatloaf mondays!
We have meals together every evening so we feel connected as a family.
Talking about our day over a homecooked meal.
We have sit down meals at the table. None of this running in, grabbing a bite while standing and texting. Love talking to my grandkids to see how their day has gone when they come by.
Dinner together everynight
My husband works second shift, since we homeschool lunch is our family meal.
My favorite meal tradition in our family is once a week we make breakfast for dinner and cook it together then eat together! It’s nice to just take some time for us to be together and laugh!
My favorite meal tradition in our family is every Saturday, we have a huge breakfast and afterwards, we just sit for hours and talk and catch up.
pizza night!
preparing the meal, and eating it together, and cleaning up afterwards. it’s amazing how much talking can happen!
Every Sunday, all 5 of of my siblings & their families meet up at our parents house for dinner and a family game night. It’s a tradition we’ve held for several years now. It’d definitely my favorite day of the week!
Having homemade Friday night ice cream. We never purchase ice cream. It is always homemade. We only have ice cream on Friday night. It is fun looking forward to that treat.
We eat a big brunch every sunday and then gather indoors during the winter and go for outdoor activities in the summer
We try to sit down to dinner together any night my son does not have an activity. So we eat together most nights. As he gets older I can see this being a struggle.
thanks
We love to go camping as a family and one of the mornings is our BIG breakfast. Eggs bacon Choc Gravy biscuits etc. This a fun family tradition!
Monday night dinner for our family is the best of the whole week.
We always sit down to dinner together. It is one of the few times we can all be together with our busy schedules.
Being with family and having some predictably and calm in part of my busy day.
We enjoy breakfast for dinner night most.
I love this idea! We are trying the 1 hour unwind from blue screens before bedtime also and it makes such a difference! Good Luck to All
We do High, Low. We go around table and tell your low point of the day and then the high point!
Eating dinner together every night!
While my children were growing up the one family meal tradition that meant so much to me was having birthday dinners together. This was with my husband, myself, my parents, his mom and our children. It was either on the person’s birth date or the day before or following that we got together. We always had the birthday person’s favorite meal. It was usually the same thing year after year or a special request. This to me was a fantastic tradition. It brought three generations together to eat. talk, laugh and make memories that can never be replace. My parents are gone as is my husband’s, but all of us still talk lovingly about those years we were together as a family. We don’t live close enough to our kids to get together but we always call each other to sing happy birthday and relive some of those magical days.
We try and always eat dinner together it is a nice way to end a busy day
Pancake Sunday!! We do that once a month at my house….or at least when I remember
Chinese food on Sundays! I was always intimidated but it is so easy and is something we all love!
Just sitting down together to eat…no TV, no phones, no distractions….
My favorite meal tradition is taco night!
We have a traditional Christmas Eve breakfast that I enjoy. I make homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast just like my mom use to and hers before.
Sitting down at the kitchen table with no cell phones or TV sharing events of the day
This is EASY! We’ve always done dinner, every single day, with no television, no phones, no game devices! It’s been at least 22 years of that. It was a great way to connect and learn about how everybody’s day was.
Sitting down at the table together at breakfast, before the day starts and saying Grace before we eat…..by far my most favorite part of the day!
We sit down together for 2 meals a week.
Everyone works different shifts here.
My favorite meal tradition is Friday nights! We are always ALL home and not rushing to sports, school events, etc. and so we’ll usually do pizza, popcorn and a movie. Some nights we make our own, some we order in, some we cook premade.
Desert before the meal is my favorite family tradition.