Two Essential Family Practices
How to create readers. Why to make family dinners normal. And the surprisingly profound impact these two habits can have.
Hello, good people, and Happy Valentine’s Day. I’ll keep it short and sweet today as I highlight two of the most important priorities in parenting. Both of these were inspired by a re-read of my friend Jeremy Adams’ terrific book, Hollowed Out.
The Benefits of Family Dinners
There is a reason every great culture has ritualized and even sacralized community meals.
According to Jeremy Adams, author of Hollowed Out, “Children who do not dine with their parents at least twice a week are more likely to be overweight, less likely to eat vegetables, and more likely to be truant at school.”
According to Harvard professor Anne Fishel, “…dinner time conversation boosts vocabulary more than being read aloud to…” and it lowers rates of depression and suicidal thoughts.
Fishel also has found that regular family meals are better predictors of improved standardized test scores than time spent in school or spent doing homework.
And, according to Fishel, “…smoking, binge drinking, marijuana usage, violence, school problems, eating disorders, and sexual activity…” are less likely in homes with regular family dinners.
But, over the past 20 years, the frequency of family meals has declined by 33%
In the US, about 20% of meals are consumed in the car.
Family dinners are a consistent ritual that makes a family a family. It is a time to check in on each other, to understand each other, to be part of each other’s lives, and a time for you to communicate what matters most to your children.
My wife and I eat dinner with our children (ages 4 and almost 6) most nights. No screens. Just the four of us. And, full disclosure: it can be aggravating at times. There are days where I’d do anything not to hear another question or just to be able to talk to my wife at dinner without interruption. But that is characteristic of having kids (and of relationships), in general. They can be quite aggravating and yet, we wouldn’t trade them for anything. They are portals to deeper love and deeper living. Likewise, we would not trade our family dinner habit for anything.
Now, to the second essential practice to prioritize in your family…
The Benefits of Reading
Oxford University researchers found that, of the extracurricular activities that sixteen-year-olds participate in, the only one that had significant workplace benefits later in life was reading.
As the master of learning Jim Kwik explains, “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”
According to Jeremy Adams’ Hollowed Out, “In 2018, the Pew Research Center reported that adults with incomes of less than $30,000 per year are three times as likely as affluent households to be “non-book readers.”
In 1980, 60% of teenagers reported that they read a newspaper, magazine, or book on a daily basis for pleasure. But by 2016, that number had dropped to 16%.
As of 2016, thirteen-year-olds are more likely to read for pleasure than seventeen-year-olds. The reasons for this are fairly apparent. Many parents have expressed to me that their boys were once readers, but they stopped reading books and become obsessed with video games around age 10. In order to thrive in modernity, it is important to set limits and seek to limit or eliminate the environmental pitfalls.
Some Other Thoughts on Creating Readers
First of all, your model and your environment matters most here. Do you read? Are there books in the home? As I wrote in One Parenting Rule We All Need to Remember:
“With elementary students today, we place a ton of emphasis on arbitrary learning benchmarks, but we tend to completely ignore a far more important predictor of educational success: whether or not a student's parents are learners.”
Many lifelong readers report reading a lot less in the past couple decades. As the call to social media and entertainment has become stronger, the ability to sit and read has decreased. Consequently, the number of people who read for pleasure has declined 30% since 2004.
If you and your family are going to read, reading must be a value.
Some tips to read more and create readers:
Schedule time to read each day. If it matters, maybe it is a better way to spend the first 20-minutes of the day than scrolling social media.
Subscribe to newsletters like Alex & Books Newsletter for great tips on reading and great suggestions for every interest.
Quit books quickly when they aren’t holding your interest. If you are worried about the cost, the Libby app allows you to quickly borrow and return ebook copies with any e-reader.
Get into books by listening to books on your commute or while doing chores. For $14.95 per month you can get an Audible.com subscription which comes with one book credit each month. Perhaps you can pair this with family time by listening to a book with your son or daughter at breakfast each day.
Push your kids (boys especially) to read anything that gets them reading. Comics and sports books are great. The habit of reading opens doors and will gradually spark more interests.
Get a copy of Setting the Bar! Now, that’s a page turner!
Thanks so much for reading today and for sharing with any kindred spirits who you think would find value.
On a related note, I’ve recently gone through this fascinating podcast series on how teaching kids to read has gone very wrong in this country. It is called Sold a Story. Parents, teachers, and conscientious citizens will likely find this as fascinating as I did.
Lastly, I had the pleasure of speaking with Brandon Tumblin on The Strong Stoic Podcast last week. Brandon is an awesome, insightful guy who I’m proud to call a friend. The intro music alone makes this one worth a listen.
Carry the Fire!
Shane