I have a chatty familiy.  If there is ever a silent moment in the house or car, it's because everyone is asleep or someone is mad and grouchy.  Apart from that, there is an endless stream of conversation, yells, giggles, arguments and more.  Never a dull moment around here.

In the midst of this mostly happy chaos, two habits have emerged as crucial to our family identity and health: dinner times and car rides  (several million of them by now and counting).

We basically eat every dinner meal together, whether at home or out.   Conversation pings around the table like a ping pong match, and we share all the days events and moments, big or small, in a careening, random fashion.  "How did that test go?"  "Who did you play with on the playground?"  "I'm so mad at my teacher."  "Can we go snowboarding this weekend?"  "You're going on a trip again!"  "My arm is killing me; we got shots today."  "Dad that joke was really lame, ok, 1,2,3...let's all laugh...ha, ha, ha." You get the idea.

Car rides are no different; except we debrief, destress and converse while in motion. 

It's great stuff.  There's interaction.  Every knows what everyone is doing, feeling, thinking and rejoicing or struggling over.  There's a lot of transparency for the most part.   Not to be corny, but there's a fair amount of love going around.

I think for many families, this kind of interaction is normative, "just who we are, what we do."  So there is no rocket science here...or maybe there is.  According to several key studies, the family dinner in many homes are becoming less and less frequent, and in some cases extinct.  Families are eating with the TV incessantly on.  There's no conversation.  Tensions are keeping members from talking.  The food is no good.   Meals are not eaten at the same table.  And on it goes.  There is no sense of togetherness, identity, and well...familiy.

Research has now clearly shown, there are distinct consequences when the family meal is neglected.

Dr. Doherty has written the book Putting Family First: Successful Strategies for Reclaiming Famiy Life in A Hurry Up World. Doherty, W.J. (2002)

Doherty stated: “For young children, meal time at home is a stronger predictor of academic achievement and psychological adjustment than time spent in any of the following activities: school, studying, sports, church/religious activities, or art activities. For teens, having regular dinners with parents is a strong predictor of academic success, psychological adjustment, and lower rates of alcohol use, drug use, early sexual behavior, eating disorders, and risk for suicide.”

Time Magazine, June 4, 2006 wrote:  "The most probing study of family eating patterns was published last year by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University and reflects nearly a decade's worth of data gathering. The researchers found essentially that family dinner gets better with practice; the less often a family eats together, the worse the experience is likely to be, the less healthy the food and the more meager the talk. Among those who eat together three or fewer times a week, 45% say the TV is on during meals (as opposed to 37% of all households), and nearly one-third say there isn't much conversation. Such kids are also more than twice as likely as those who have frequent family meals to say there is a great deal of tension among family members, and they are much less likely to think their parents are proud of them.

The older that kids are, the more they may need this protected time together, but the less likely they are to get it. Although a majority of 12-year-olds in the CASA study said they had dinner with a parent seven nights a week, only a quarter of 17-year-olds did. Researchers have found all kinds of intriguing educational and ethnic patterns. The families with the least educated parents, for example, eat together the most; parents with less than a high school education share more meals with their kids than do parents with high school diplomas or college degrees. That may end up acting as a generational corrective; kids who eat most often with their parents are 40% more likely to say they get mainly A's and B's in school than kids who have two or fewer family dinners a week. "

Take away:  There are some simple habits you can culitivate as a family that will help everyone bond, be healthy, more vibrant, more productive and better adjusted.  Make it a practice and priority to have family time at dinner, and while you're doing car pooling duty.   The family that eats together and rides together stays together.