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les Stress
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MUTUAL MASTICATION
Les,
I read many of your archived questions and there is a lot of good advice for reducing stress. One suggestion that I did not see was family dinner time. I know that fewer and fewer people sit down together for meals and I think that this contributes to increased stress. I feel very fortunate that I had the experience of these family dinners when I was growing up (I am 53) and I do realize that family dinners are not always pleasant experiences. I feel like dinner time was a built in break that signaled the end of the day, or stressful part of the day even though as a kid I usually wanted to be outside playing with my friends instead of sitting inside eating food I didn’t particularly like. Now as a parent, I know that sitting together with my kids at the end of the day gives us a chance to process some of what went on in our days and this helps to decompress and calm down after many hours of non-stop toil. When I make dinner at home, I try to include my kids in that process as a way of being more invested in eating and being patient during the dinner hour or half hour. We also have a small garden which adds to that investment idea. I am not a big rule maker (I grew up in the 60s), but I do not allow television, phone calls, texting or video games during dinner.
I know that everything I just said totally goes against the grain of where we are going as a society. My kids have after-school sports, friends, homework and MySpace pages, too, but I really think that our dedicated dinner time helps to reduce our stress and that is why I wanted to share this information. We are not able to eat together every night, but I think that our emphasis on the importance of this family activity even if we can’t always do it is valuable by itself. I also don’t have to work two jobs and my kids go to school in the same town we live in, so I am very lucky and know that not everyone has the same good fortune.
I hope that others find this letter helpful.
Midwest Mom
P.S. Start early with getting your kids used to the idea of dedicated dinner time.
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