This article claims that family meals are on a steep decline in America. Do you agree that this has to do with the economy or are there other reasons? What about Slovakia? How often does your family sit together to eat? Do you agree with the benefits which this article claims are connected to eating together as a family? What about trying to create “family meals” when those involved are not related to each other?
Nowadays, the humans want to make an extreme development in technology. The whole society is in a vicious circle. This circle consists of certain problems, such as lack of nature, lack of free time and deteriorating behavior. Since the whole society is subordinate to it, it’s really hard to escape. Only ones, who made a radical change in their lives, are able not to follow these sick issues.
ReplyDeleteI really like this article. It has a sense, it’s pertinent and I found myself in its lines. It completely shows the modern problems dealing with the common eating. This article says about an importance of having a common dinner. It’s also alarming than many troubles in personality can be caused by not spending enough time with members of family.
Since people nowadays are always in hurry, they should spend at least a little time with their relatives and members of family during the dinner. It’s a place for expressing opinions, giving advices, sharing the feelings and common talking as well. I do not think it has something to do with economy. It presents much more important values, than money is. I think people should stop for a while and ask ourselves. Are they really satisfied with their lives? Do they spend enough time with people they like? Having done this, they maybe realize that common dinners are important and will try to have as many as they can.
The activities such as the first Family Day, are solving only consequences of certain problems. They are not solving their causes. However, I appreciate that, at least something is done for making the world better. They’re not just complaining, but are making real changes. I would like to have a similar fete here in Slovakia. It’s a place for families to really enjoy the time spent together. I can imagine how I would spend this holiday. All my family would go to the cottage and we would have a barbecue. It would be a great time. Maybe in the long future, the holidays like this will be ordinary to us.
I agree with the profits of common meal. Everyone’s personal skills, emotional intelligence and understanding the surrounding are improving during the time spent with members of family. I do not have to mention that common dinners are also important to develop relationships. If the members of families won’t spend, at least the dinner time together, the warm, friendly home will change into cold, dead one. The relationship can’t exist without time spent together.
I spend with my family lots of time. Every single weekend we meet in my grandparent’s house and we are just enjoying being together. We have common holidays, such as Christmas and Easter as well. Our family is quite big. I think it’s very good, because we are not bored anytime. We have lots of issues to talk about. I can’t imagine that I would not spend so much time with my family. It’s really important to me. I hope lots of other families have the same family meetings as I have.
This article states that if you eat with your family, you learn to communicate better. Well, I have to disagree with this simple implication. Why? Because it doesn't have to be true. But how? The article has shown these two things are linked. I agree with that part, but it doesn't mean this is cause-consequence link. I think that both these effects (improved communication skills and family dining) are consequence of some other cause – good parenting for example (this is stated only as possibility).
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong. I love eating with my family, even though it doesn't happen all that often. It's because my parents have their often activities, they both work and come home late. Yet, on weekends we share lunch together – and that's a good time. We don't talk much, but we talk about good topics (I dislike overuse of words just to fill silence). When we (me and my brothers) were younger this happened less often, because father was working almost all day long. I don't think that it limited my speech abilities, neither did meals improve it (when I grew older). I don't think I ever had problems with speech or communication, regardless of lack of meals with family. Yet I think that it is a good way to spend quality time with family, and that mustn't be neglected.
Spending little time with family is serious issue, which president Obama tried to solve with declaration of “Family day”. I think however that it will help only those families which WANT to spend time together. If you don't want to spend time with them, you will only be bored and you will see only the worst parts. That however government can't influence, which is a shame, because it would help greatly. I find Obama's plan is good nevertheless.
In Slovakia we could use some day like this, because it's a good cause why “would we go out today”. That is needed, because lot of families tend to move the date of family day outs, because of many reasons, and this would make them make it stationary. This would ensure lot of families to go out (if it's well-advertised and popular decision) which would help them to make better relations with each other. These are important for good functioning of family, which will help greatly on further development of children.
Family meals are nowadays considered to as somehow old-fashioned. This doesn’t necessarily need to be because of economic factors. Differences in attitudes of children to old traditions have changed rapidly. Usually, mostly teenagers, find some other events more important which harms their social development in near future. However, this happens mostly because they get engulfed by puberty, which disappears fortunately later on. Other factor that might affect the lack of family meals is the development of the new technology world. This includes eating by television or computer instead of eating with your family. In addition, these days the world is rushed, so in many cases there is not enough time for spending dinner together with the family, whereas children have much stuff to do to school, and parents have other responsibilities. Family meals are mostly, better said were, popular in America because people there, have big houses and quite big families, and the meal is a perfect event for spending time together. “It is not just a time to feed your body: it is a time to feed your mind and soul as well”. Slovakia doesn’t really have these types of traditions as far as I know which is sad. In my opinion it is a great idea to spend the meal with your closest family because you can celebrate your day successes or to find solutions to some problems. Our family doesn’t really sit together really often because my parents live in Budapest and they come to visit me only on weekends, though we try to sit together at least on Sunday at lunch. We discuss the whole week and I really enjoy these moments because it helps me to forget about everyday ´s problems or responsibilities at least for a moment. The benefits the article claims are quite similar to those of which I would think of. I totally agree that the meal time “is not just the time to feed the body but also to feed the mind and soul.” I also believe that if there is enough time for family meals, the parents show great care to their children, of course if not affected by other serious factors like in my case the distance. The benefits such as the communication higher academic performance and improved eating habits are great for the further developments of the children that have a chance to have a meal time with their family. There are also other benefits that include the encouragement of the development of language skills and emotional intelligence. In conclusion there are many benefits that help children in their later future with having meal time with their families. I wish I had a chance to have it more often. In addition, when I grow up, I want my own family to have something like this implemented to our life for sure.
ReplyDeleteActually, I agree with Sabina’s opinions and ideas. She made a good point about how televisions and computers affect common meals. It’s true that children in their teenage years consider friends as closer persons than parents are. Due to this, they do not want to spend common meals with family members and rather eat in front of Facebook or in restaurants with their friends. However, I don’t think that common dinners take place in America more often than in the rest of the world. Moreover, I think that there’s a big lack of common eating in America. Many Americans are really rushed and they do not follow healthy habits. In my opinion, people of eastern cultures, such as Tibetans are keener on common eating than Americans are. Sabina said that also Slovaks do not often have common meals. Well, it’s maybe valid for citizens of towns, but the habitants in villages still have common meal. However, I need to admit that there’s a lower and lower number of these habitants, since lots of people are moving to towns. I’m pleased with Sabina’s view of future. She wants to have common meals with her family. I believe she will follow it and she finds peace on a chair at the table.
Delete@ Matus and Milan:
ReplyDeleteI completely share Mathew’s opinion on families having meals together. During dinner there is definitely time for the family to share their stories, advices, feelings and they have space to get closer to each other. During working days most people don’t get the opportunity be with their families, but during dinner, the family gathers up to enjoy their meal and gets space to communicate. This is absolutely true for my family. My parents strictly make sure that we have dinner together during the week, and on weekends we have breakfast and lunch together too. I share Mathew’s opinion on the importance of having a common dinner, therefore I don’t agree with Milan. I don’t necessary think that “good parenting” will improve communication skills of the family. Every single person has a different idea of “good parenting”. After all, that the primary reason of children being raised differently. Under my subjective opinion, good parents want their family to be together while eating a meal. It is because of the way I had been raised, but I understand that many people may have different opinions on this issue.
It is true that the more time the family spends together, the closer they are to each other and the better their communication is between them. Therefore I agree with both Milan’s and Mathew’s opinion on the declaration of the “Family day“. It would be great if everyone had the opportunity to spend a day only with his or her families. However, it is questionable whether people would actually spend quality time with the families, or just use the time to catch up on their duties.