Recently, as we were sitting at the dinner table discussing our homeschooling curriculum for the upcoming semester, I had an all too vivid reminder that we had neglected a vital part of their education. My children were eating like Neanderthals. They couldn’t sit still, they slurped, they used their fingers, they interrupted, they reached, and yes, they even burped. How could this happen? Where did we go wrong? When I was little, I remember my mother saying things like, “Sheila, sit up straight,” or, “remember to use your knife.” Today, I find myself saying, “Rebecca, stay in your chair,” and “remember to use your fork.”

Somewhere along the line we forgot to teach our kids the polite way to eat. Once they had mastered picking up the food themselves and getting most of it in their mouths, rather than in their hair, we figured our job had ended. It’s not that I don’t think manners are important; I think it’s because as a culture, we’ve made dinner a far more casual affair than it once was.

Families used to eat dinner together, and not just once or twice a week, but all the time. Today we eat McDonald’s drive through on our way to errands, if we’re lucky. One recent study from the University of Minnesota found that most families eat together only three times a week, and those meals take far less time than they did even twenty years ago. We sit down, we inhale, we get up.

That’s too bad, because studies also show that eating together has incredible benefits. Teens who eat dinner with their families at least five times a week are less likely to do drugs or be depressed, and are more likely to do well in school. And kids who never eat with their parents are 60% more likely to smoke or drink. It only makes sense; dinner is one of those few opportunities to be together and actually talk. At other times, we’re running in different directions.

In Deuteronomy 6 when God instructs parents to talk about His laws to their kids at all times of the day, I don’t think it’s just because God wants us to lecture them constantly. It’s because He wants us to be with them. Kids internalize our messages when they see us living it out, and they can’t see it if we’re not together. We have to put in the time.

Unfortunately, with shift work becoming more and more common, making time to eat together is difficult. On the nights when my husband is working I find it hard to get excited about cooking a meal. After all, chances are my kids won’t like it anyway, and why cook just for me? Dinner, instead of becoming a family tradition where we all meet at the table, becomes haphazard, depending on who is where on any given night.

Traditions seem old-fashioned, but this is one we should fight to preserve. Dinners provide time to talk about what kids are reading in school, who their friends are, what their plans are for the upcoming year. They let us keep abreast of what our kids are doing and thinking, which helps us to pray and guide them more effectively.

If your spouse isn’t home, you can still try to make the effort to sit down with your kids, even if it’s just around a bowl of Corn Flakes and some scrambled eggs. We’ve started to bring out the good dishes even for regular meals, and to light candles to add some ambience. Aside from delighting my children, this has the fortunate side effect that they render the “yucky green stuff” Mommy puts on food—in other words, the parsley—a little more invisible.

We’re still left with that pesky problem, though, that when it comes to utensils my kids do eat like pigs, except that pigs will eat anything, and my kids will not. So I will try to teach them some more manners so that dinner is fun for everyone. Life is stressful for kids, and if we want to equip them to go to God for solutions, we need low stress time to connect. Let’s start the new year with a renewed commitment to save dinner, so that we can work on saving our families. You can find Sheila and information about her book, To Love, Honor and Vacuum, at www.SheilaWrayGregoire.com.

From a babysitting collective to an herbal bath business, Sheila Wray Gregoire would rather create her own job than have someone hire her--a born entrepreneur. But being raised by a single mom, even one who did a wonderful job, left a hole where her father should have been and fueled her passion to preserve marriages. She and her husband, Keith, "tag-team" homeschool their kids. She also writes for national magazines and speaks across the country, combining the realities of a family with Scripture for real-world, real-biblical answers.