As I have gotten older, I often wish that  I could go back and and teach my twenty-something self what was important to focus on, and what didn’t make a difference. There are so many diverse ways of raising children. It was very confusing to me.

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Because of my insecurity and lack of parenting knowledge in those years, I have had a growing desire to help families through my research and my experience as a mother, grandmother, and teacher. What critical things do we need to be doing in order to build strong, resilient children? How can I share these methods?

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Recently, on Reddit, I read a post by a single father discussing his struggles with family dinner. He listed the obstacles he was facing: work to get money for food, shopping to buy the food, then cooking the food itself only to have that food wasted by kids who wouldn't eat what he'd fixed. Finally, at the end, he said, "What do you even talk about at dinner anyway?"

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That’s a very good question! This website is to help you understand  why it is important to push through the obstacles of making dinner at home. Then, once you are gathered, what you can talk about at dinner to help your children become virtuous and outstanding people.

 

We have three times every day that our children come to us hungry for physical nourishment. They are a captive audience and for a few minutes, as we sit down with them, we have the chance to teach, commiserate, help, soothe, tease, or bond. If we see this time as a gift, we can feed our children emotionally and spiritually while we are feeding them physically. 

 

With six children, I know the ups and downs of parenthood in a real, experienced way, and through my research and teaching I have created a simple but powerful tool to bring your family closer together as you eat your meals together. At any meal you can read these character stories to help children learn about and develop strong and virtuous character, at the same time promoting good discussion and helping them develop positive, powerful mental models on these characteristics of the Savior. 

 

As a young mother I tried to teach my children well in gospel teachings and ways. We read the scriptures as a family, went to church each week, and had family prayer. These were potent protective rituals that helped us connect to the Savior and each other. Now family time is competing with more and more technology. Consider a study in 2018 that found that American families only spend forty minutes together Monday through Friday. Forty minutes! That’s a shocking statistic.1

 

In addition to the powerful spiritual patterns many of us already use, these character stories at dinner will enhance all of wonderful spiritual practices we already  do as families.

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Over and over these stories reinforce positive character traits that are available to everyone. We can all be loving, courageous, and curious! My mother taught me and my siblings important principles and practices  through stories, and many landed deeply inside of me. Stories are sneaky--they are interesting and we remember them more than lectures. 

 

As we learn as families about integrity, for example, we can start reinforcing what we have learned  through each story's principles and have more integrity. Reading these stories can help each member develop new mental models,  expand our self-mastery and can be a protection from the permissive culture we live in. These character stories can be working internally and unceasingly on each one of us, parents and children.

 

After each story there are questions to promote discussion, which will extend the golden hour of dinnertime even longer, with more precious time together.  Even though these stories are for 8-12 year olds, I think older and younger children will also be listening, as you read them every night, around your table. 

 

  1. Ben Renner, “American families spend just 37 minutes of quality time together per day, survey finds, Study Finds, 21 Mar. 2018,                        https://studyfinds.org/american-families-spend-37-minutes-quality-time/.