Over the last 30 years, there has been a dramatic shift not only in what we eat, but how we eat.
The ritual of family dinner is in danger of becoming extinct. More and more kids come home to an
empty house after school; relying mostly on processed snack foods and microwavables to sustain
themselves before their parents arrive home with a takeout box. Studies show that children
who engage in regular family dinners eat more nutritious diets, get better grades in school and
develop better communication skills, so how can the modern family break this cycle and bring
back family dinner?
The Kids Cook Monday is a new initiative that gives families an effective, weekly way to keep up
family dinners. When Monday is family dinner night, the meal becomes a fun event, ensuring that
parents and kids spend quality time together every week, all year round.
You can use the beginning of the school week as an opportunity to continue teaching your
kids even after they come home from school. As your little chefs squeeze oranges, tell them
how vitamin C strengthens their immune systems to fight off colds or how the potatoes they’re
mashing first grew underground.
Columbia’s Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse found that family dinners also help foster
important life lessons. Kids who ate regularly with their families were more likely to come to
their parents with a problem and less likely to try drugs and alcohol. Parents can use Kids Cook
Monday night to check in with their kids about the weekend that’s passed and discuss plans for
the coming week.
By sustaining the tradition of family dinners, we are sustaining our health and our relationships
with each other. Food activist and author Michael Pollan writes “Shared meals are about much
more than fueling bodies; they are uniquely human institutions where our species developed
language and this thing we call culture.” Make cooking and eating together your first priority on
the first evening of each week. Keep our culture, and our children, alive and well!
For more information and a slew of fantastic recipes, check out TheKidsCookMonday.org
Follow The Kids Cook Monday on Twitter @KidsCookMonday
Find them on Facebook here!
