As we stood at my kitchen counter, my friend said,\u00a0\u201cYou ought to write about it. Makes you seem human, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
So, in the spirit of self-disclosure inspired by articles I read recently by parents who admitted their shortcomings, I\u2019m doing the same. One father wrote about\u00a0missing too many dinners\u00a0with his family. A fellow pediatrician wrote about what happened when her daughter went to\u00a0bed with an iPad.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s my confession: sometimes, my kids and I eat dinner in front of the TV.<\/p>\n
When I was a kid, I watched very little TV (for many years, my mother and I didn\u2019t even have a TV) except when I enjoyed summers with my grandparents. After spending the days outside in the woods or along the river, I was allowed to watch TV at night. My grandmother was a well-educated, cultured Southern woman who believed in table manners and personal style (I spent a lot of time walking around with a book on my head for her.)<\/p>\n
So, in retrospect, it surprises me that during those summer vacations, we ate nearly every evening in front of the television. We ate our dinner on china, with silver, but \u2013 while watching TV. We watched old stuff like Hogan\u2019s Heroes<\/em>, M*A*S*H<\/em>, Hee Haw<\/em> (seriously), The MacNeil\/Lehrer Report<\/em>, Lawrence Welk<\/em> (they were my grandparents after all!), and The Mary Tyler Moore Show<\/em>.<\/p>\n Was this wasted time? Were dinners without conversation a loss? I think perhaps not. Instead, I remember that what we watched united us through shared references. We had plenty to talk about after the shows were over.<\/p>\n So maybe my friend was right when she told me to stop worrying. The occasional dinner in front of the television without attention to table manners and conversation won\u2019t damage the kids.<\/p>\n As a pediatrician and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and Media, I\u2019m passionate about helping parents navigate their family’s use of media in a healthy way. I recommend sitting around a table and talking with your kids for a meal every day. I support the\u00a0AAP\u2019s recommendations<\/a>\u00a0that we turn off screens as much as possible \u2013 especially at the dinner table.\u00a0Dinners\u00a0eaten together as a family are important<\/a>\u00a0to me. Conversation is a priority.<\/p>\n However, parenting is a messy business, and we\u2019re indeed human. Parents need to forgive themselves when they don\u2019t always follow the rules and advice given to them \u2013 when they sometimes miss meals, give kids iPads, or eat dinner in front of a screen. Having the TV on isn\u2019t ideal, but perhaps my kids will benefit from my bending the rules occasionally \u2013 and not being too hard on myself if I\u2019m not parenting perfectly.<\/p>\n