Skip to main content

Absurd advice for parents with school children . . .

. . . courtesy of Parents.com.

I'm all for sitting down and eating as a family.  We do it in my house every single night.  The oldest person home, whether 55, or 30, or 16, is expected to have dinner on the table, and everyone in the house will sit down and discuss their day.

In that I am in complete agreement with this article:

Families who chow together bond better than those who eat at separate times and spaces. Sitting around the table -- or even just grating carrots in the kitchen -- encourages kids and parents to relax and share what's on their mind (keep the TV off!). The benefits of this quality mealtime are long-lasting: Kids from families who dine together frequently are 31 percent less likely to smoke, drink, or do drugs later on as teenagers, according to a study of 2,000 youngsters by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.
However, this next part threw me for a loop:

If your schedule doesn't allow for family dinners as often as you'd like, consider bonding over breakfast. The Geddes family of New York City manages to have dinner together a few nights a week, but they make sure to sit down to eat every morning. "Sure, it can be hectic," says Jennifer Geddes, mother of two girls, ages 18 months and 4 years, "but we count on that time together before we go our separate ways."
Obviously Jennifer does not know what's in store for her when the kids hit school.  Let's take a typical weekday morning at our household over the past year, and you tell me when we get to have breakfast:

6:10 The twins out the door to catch the CSW bus.

6:34 The neice out the door to catch the Conrad bus.

7:05 The eldest daughter out the door to work.

7:55 The grandson out the door to catch the Linden Hill bus.

8:05 My wife and I out the door to work.

Obviously, among its other many evils, the Red Clay School District wants to keep families from having breakfast together by staggering bus schedules.

What, oh, really?  Happens everywhere?

Somebody should tell Parents.com

Comments

Anonymous said…
Many kids play sports or have other activities that start and run right through dinner time, especially if it is more than a ten minute drive to practice or game.
My family has breakfast together more often than we have dinner.
No drug addicts yet so maybe it doesn't matter which meal.
Or no meal at all, just family time together at some point in the day.
TV isn't always the devil either.
My family loves to watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy together. The kids love figuring out the answers and are super excited when they know an answer on Jeopardy.
I guess one familys absurdity is another familys meal time together
April 22, 2012 at 1:55 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?
1 comment
Read more

New Warfare: I started my posts with a discussion.....

.....on Unrestricted warfare . The US Air force Institute for National Security Studies have developed a reasonable systems approach to deter non-state violent actors who they label as NSVA's. It is an exceptionally important report if we want to deter violent extremism and other potential violent actors that could threaten this nation and its security. It is THE report our political officials should be listening to to shape policy so that we do not become excessive in using force against those who do not agree with policy and dispute it with reason and normal non-violent civil disobedience. This report, should be carefully read by everyone really concerned with protecting civil liberties while deterring violent terrorism and I recommend if you are a professional you send your recommendations via e-mail at the link above so that either 1.) additional safeguards to civil liberties are included, or 2.) additional viable strategies can be used. Finally, one can only hope that politici...
Post a Comment
Read more

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...
70 comments
Read more