Date: Fri 21-May-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

edink-Pizza-night-meals

Full Text:

ED INK: Family Life In Motion

Family life is a study in motion. Parents and kids alike tick through

spring-wound days fully scheduled with work, school, sports, music lessons,

dance class, PTA meetings, concerts, grocery shopping, birthday parties, field

trips... The list never actually ends, the overflow just appends itself to

tomorrow's list. The individual cogs of this complex family mechanism often

seem to be spinning in different directions, and on many days family members

relate to each other only in passing, maintaining merely a kind of

transactional relationship of accommodation with each other, oftentimes

carried out through notes on the refrigerator.

"Don't forget I need you to..."

"I'm going to need the car for a couple of hours this afternoon..."

"When are you going to get around to taking care of..."

The motion rarely stops. Experts who study the family and the development of

children say this kind of non-stop clockwork family life takes its toll.

Evidence of this has been found by studying families who actually do come to a

full stop regularly -- for a family meal.

Newtown's Family Counseling Center has been vigorously promoting the value of

sit-down family meals. To bolster its campaign the local agency cites some

interesting facts turned up in documented research reviewed and reported by

the New Milford Area Health Community 2000 Task Force on Teen and Adolescent

Issues:

Families that converse over dinner have a greater affection for each other;

siblings who routinely sit at the dinner table with each other are more likely

to remain close to each other in adulthood; children who eat with adults have

more respect for and a greater interest in the lives of elders.

The best readers in all grades, elementary through high school, share one

common factor -- their families eat dinner together; the children in these

families also develop more complete vocabularies and score two to three grade

levels higher on standardized reading and language tests.

When children of alcoholics routinely sit down with the family for dinner,

they are less likely to become alcoholics themselves.

There is an inverse correlation between the number of days per week that

adolescents eat meals with their families and the rates at which they become

depressed or take drugs. Those who eat with their families are more motivated

in school and forge better peer realtionships.

What better way for the Family Counseling Center, which is supported by the

United Way and by local contributions, to support its work on behalf of

healthy, happy families than to sponsor once again its annual Family Pizza

Night. The event, now in its eighth year, is scheduled for next Tuesday, May

25, from 5 to 8 pm. Pizza Night, featuring the best pies from more than two

dozen pizza emporiums in Newtown, Danbury, Southbury, Bethel, Brookfield and

Monroe, is scheduled for a new location this year: the Newtown High School

Cafeteria. The cost is $5 per person; children under four eat for free.

Call time-out in your house next Tuesday, and gather up everyone and go to

Family Pizza Night. The proceeds from the event will benefit the Family

Counseling Center, and the meal together will benefit your own family life.