Is the Family Dinner Going Extinct?

Dad Mark spends at least 60 hours a week operating his growing contracting business.

Mom Sharla is busy organizing her local Mothers of Preschoolers group and caring for newborn Sydney.

Even 5-year-old Emalee finds herself occupied with preschool, dance and gymnastics classes.

But, no matter how busy they get, the Highlands Ranch family stops at dinnertime every day to sit down to a family meal.

"We talk about the highs and lows of the day," Sharla said. "It's just a really important time for us to sort of regroup."

The Hallidays are a rarity these days. As families become increasingly busy, family dinners - and family time in general - are being thrown by the wayside.

According to statistics, fewer than one-third of American children, on any given day, will sit down to dinner with both of their parents.

The trend has many concerned. Studies have shown that regular family dinners benefit children and teens in a variety of ways.

According to Harvard Medical School, children who eat with their family have a 15 percent lower chance of being overweight. And a recent study by Columbia University found children and teens who have regular family dinners are less likely to use drugs and alcohol and more likely to earn good grades in school.

Sue Coffey, a counselor at Littleton's Believing in Kids and Families, says about 80 percent of her clients are having problems because their families are over scheduled and not spending enough time together.

"People have all these balls in the air, and eventually they're going to drop one," Coffey said. "If one of those balls happens to be your family's relationship, it can cause problems."

The busy epidemic

Signs of a busy lifestyle are all over the Halliday's house.

Mark's bike hangs in the garage gathering dust; its tires are flat. He just hasn't had time to ride it lately.

The plant on Sharla's front porch has dried up and died. Nobody ever had time to water it.

And, despite Mark's contracting skills, most of the house looks the same as when the family moved in several years ago. It's awaiting the remodeling work that still hasn't happened.

"I used to make fun of people, saying that is seems like they just think they need to be busy," Mark said. "But now I know that it just happens. You just become so busy."

Families throughout the nation are getting a case of the busy bug. In a survey conducted by the Center on Work and Family, 45 percent of parents said they felt they had to rush to get everything don each day. The center also notes that leisure time has decreased by more than 47 hours since the 1960s.

"It's become a social norm," said counselor Coffey. "All people have to say is, 'I'm so busy,' and everyone goes, 'I know.' You never hear someone say, 'I don't know what to do with all this time I have on my hands.'"

Many families today are forced to send both parents to work due to the weaker economy, Coffey said. Child-rearing literature is encouraging parents to enroll their kids in more activities to "socialize" them, and teens are feeling increased pressure from universities to participate in extracurriculars.

"There's this belief that busyness equals productivity," Coffey said. "But, really, everyone needs a break sometimes."

"I could see this getting out of control"

Mark's six-day work week is a far cry from what he envisioned when he started his business, Halliday Decks and Construction, a few years ago.

Leaving a job in software sales, he saw lots of family time and multiple golf games a week in his future. So far, he hasn't played golf once.

"I always have to remind myself that I started my own business for flexibility, but sometimes that's easy to forget," he said.

For Sharla, the past few months have been jam packed as she adjusts to taking care of a newborn again. For a while, it was just hard to get out of the house with her two kids, let alone do anything, she said.

"Emalee had just become self-sufficient, and then Sydney came along," she said. "It was like starting all over again."

Sometimes, Mark and Sharla feel like they barely see each other.

"There are some nights I'll come home, and she'll be heading out the door to something else," Mark said. "We're like that old term, 'Two ships passing in the night.'"

As the Halliday's watch other families in their neighborhood grow busier as their children grow up, they're worried they haven't even seen the worst of it.

"I could totally see this getting out of control," Sharla said.

For many families, it already is, and the chaos is making their lives difficult, Coffey said.

"Sometimes I see families and the most time they spend together is in here, at my office," she said.

Couples who are stressed and never have time for themselves may begin having marital problems, she said. And children who aren't getting what they need at home will look for it elsewhere, sometimes in gangs or through substance abuse.

"Family life should feel comforting, like there's a sense of security there," she said. "If everyone's running somewhere all the time, that isn't there."

Often the cycle continues through generations, Coffey said, as stressed children become stressed parents and breed their own stressed children.

"How you parent your child is going to impact in some way how they choose to parent their own kids," she said.

Making it work

Despite the constant activity, though, the Halliday family has still managed to stay close.

They've make family time, starting with regular dinners together, a priority. Sharla works to schedule Emalee's activities around the dinner hour, and Mark cuts his days short to make it home in time to eat.

To make it easier, Sharla uses Supper Solutions, a make-ahead dinner store in Littleton, to prepare entrees that she can reheat quickly.

"Mark and I have said from the beginning that we wanted to do it this way," she said. "For him, it's the first time he sees the kids all day after leaving for the morning."

Their system isn't perfect. Important phone calls come in during dinner, and sometime, everyone is just too tired to fix a meal.

"There are times when we just go out and pick something up," Sharla admitted.

But the family is working on it. Mark is trying to free up his Saturdays so he can spend more time at home. And Sharla is already talking about placing limits on the number of activities Emalee can participate in.

"I think, when she gets a little bit older, it's going to be like, 'Let's look at what you like the best and try to focus on one thing,'" she said. "We're not going to make ourselves crazy."

And that, according to Coffey, is the best approach. The key to a stable family relationship is finding a balance between work, play and relaxation, she said.

"It's not that activity is bad," Coffey said. "People just need to recognize the value in downtime, and sometimes that's hard to do."

Help for busy families

- Sit down and draw up a family calendar. Coordinating schedules will make it easier to build in family time that works for everyone.

- Be flexible about dinner. Plan to eat a little later if everyone has commitments in the evening.

- Don't count watching TV together as family time. Do something interactive when you're together, like card or board games.

- Make the most of the time you spend together. While you're driving to and from activities, talk to your children about their day.

- Keep your time together relaxed. Don't plan dinner at a restaurant and then a movie and then a hike - your family will spend half the night rushing around. Staying home and doing something simple give you more time to spend together.

- Set limits and boundaries that work for everyone. Does your kid really need to play three sports a season? Prioritize activities and know when to say, 'No.'

- Get help. Set up car pools with other families, use dinner services such as Super Suppers and set up babysitting co-ops with neighbors to simplify schedules.