From Steve Wood’s Dads.org newsletter, dated December 12, 2006:

When I visited Russia a few years ago I was appalled to learn of a fiendish strategy of the former communist government. They developed a simple plan to strengthen allegiance to the all-powerful state while simultaneously weakening family bonds. They did it by offering the main meal of the day at factories and schools in order to supplant the family evening meal.

The erosion of the family meal, insidiously imposed on the Russian people by the communists, is being voluntarily adopted by millions of American families with tragic consequences.

Fewer American teenagers are sharing the dinner table with their parents. In a 2004 University of Minnesota study, 33.1% of adolescents reported eating family meals only once or twice per week. While only about a fourth of the adolescents reported eating seven or more meals with their family per week.

The Minnesota study found that teens who seldom or never eat with their families are:

• More likely to have lower grades
• More likely to suffer from depression
• More likely to think about suicide

The adolescent girls in this category were also found to have distinctively weak self-esteem and a high likelihood of actually attempting suicide.

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University in its study, �??The Importance of Family Dinners II,�?� reports that teens who have two or three (or less) meals per week with their families are:

• Three times more likely to experiment with marijuana
• Two and a half times more likely to smoke cigarettes
• One and a half times more likely to drink alcohol
• 79% likelier to know a classmate who abuses prescription drugs
• 31% likelier to know a friend who uses methamphetamines

Conversely, the 26% of teens that enjoy frequent family dinners (5 to 7 times per week) had:

• 40% likelier to earn A�??s or B�??s in school
• Low levels of stress in their families
• Half the risk of substance abuse
• Parents who were proud of them
• An ability to confide with their parents

Of all the teens surveyed, 37% reported that the television was on during family dinners. The TV is on in 45% of those families that dine together fewer than three times per week. As many of you have heard me mention, a dinner with the television on is a TV dinner, not a family dinner. There are those special exceptions, like when the Gators will be playing in the national championship game on January 8th. Otherwise, keep the TV off during your family dinner.

There are no second chances when in comes to fatherhood. You have precisely one opportunity to father your children. Establish the priority and make the effort to get home for regular family meals. Don�??t allow your willful neglect of family meals do what the communists tried to do: namely, weaken family bonds.