that the health benefits of family
meals are not dependent on the
time of day.
As might be expected, there
are some experts who caution that
trying to substitute breakfast for
dinner is simply a sign that people
are overloading their schedules
at the cost of time with family
and denying their children the
chance to process the events of the
day with their parents. “The big
challenge with family breakfast is
that there is a defined time that the
family has to leave in the morning
to get to work and school,”
says Blake Jones, an assistant
psychology professor at Brigham
Young University, who has also
studied family meals. Dinner, he
points out, can be more leisurely
and lead to longer conversations.
“With bedtimes getting later, the
influence of electronic devices in
the evenings and shortened sleep
patterns for adults and children,
it is often the case that kids and
parents don’t wake up early
enough to get ready for the day
and still have enough time to sit
down to eat a meal as a family.”
Observational studies suggest
that the average family dinner lasts
about 20 minutes, though if you
have little kids, it probably feels
much longer. Breakfasts, with ev-
erybody needing to be out the door
at a given time, would logically
need to be much quicker, Jones
observes. But breakfast advocates
point to that shared deadline as
a positive thing, because parents
know where everybody is—the op-
tions are usually limited to bed-
room, bathroom or waiting for the
bathroom. Before dinner, the fam-
ily could be flung to the four winds
and impossible to locate.
One of the biggest advantages
for many that family breakfast has
over dinner is that it’s much more
difficult to complain about. “The
culinary choices for breakfast
tend to inspire less grumbling,”
says Laura Vanderkam, a time-
management expert and the au-
thor of What the Most Successful
People Do Before Breakfast. “We do
You set the alarm, scrambled the
eggs and set the table. There’s
just one problem: your children
refuse to sit down for breakfast.
Here’s how to deal with kids
who insist they’re too tired, not
hungry or not interested in what
you made, according to Nancy
Oliveira, a senior nutritionist at
Massachusetts’ Brigham and
Women’s Faulkner Hospital and
mother to a 12-year-old son.
START AT NIGHT
Oliveira says many people aren’t
hungry in the morning because they
eat too late at night. Encourage
your kids to stop eating three hours
before bed, and they’ll be more
likely to wake up wanting breakfast.
A slightly earlier bedtime may
also help.
SERVE EASY FOODS
You don’t need a full buffet.
“Lighter, bite-size foods” like
cereal, nuts and sliced fruit may get
kids to at least pick at something,
Oliveira says. Serving your
children’s favorite flavors or brands
may make breakfast feel more like
an occasion.
SET REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS
If a daily family breakfast just
isn’t happening, try for twice a
week. Making those days count
is better than forcing grumpy kids
to sulk through a meal they don’t
want. “The goal is to create this
relaxing, welcoming, fun table,”
Oliveira says. “It’s not even about
sitting and eating for 15 minutes.
It’s that they want to come to the
family table.”
ÑJamie Ducharme
How to get the
kids to come
to the table
TheView Food
ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX EBEN MEYER FOR TIME
With 2% milk, at least half of adults
had a lower desire to eat
than before breakfast for 3 1/2 hours.
