Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast

Guest (Male): Josh experienced a traumatic childhood and today he wants to help other families thrive. I've partnered with Focus on the Family for quite some time now because they were instrumental to hope and to help.

Jim Daly: I'm Jim Daly. Let's transform our nation one family at a time with your monthly pledge at focusonthefamily.com/joy.

John Fuller: Okay, so this is a session for John. Because Danny, I had situations where I wanted to have fun at family mealtime, or I wanted to have these mealtime conversations with my kids because I've heard about these things. We've had guests talking about this. And it felt like more times than not there was some contentious issue that came up, some misbehaving child, or some reason that we couldn't even really enjoy a moment of togetherness at mealtime. Was that me, was that my kids, or was that just life? Don't answer that.

Danny Huerta: Those are the imperfections of the meal table.

John Fuller: So if you're feeling like me, like, "Is this ever going to get better?", this episode is for you. I'm John Fuller. Dr. Danny Huerta is across the table here. And we have a topic here that is really important. It's significant to have mealtimes together. I feel like we at least did that. It wasn't always the best and there were great moments, of course. I was painting kind of a dire picture.

Danny Huerta: The investment pays off. It's great.

John Fuller: Why is mealtime so important?

Danny Huerta: You have a set time in the day where you're going to be together, imperfections and all. And you have different temperament kids that can shake it up. It can become really disruptive. That's a very nice way of saying it.

The key for you as a parent is to be grateful that you're going to have this dinner time. It changes perception and it changes the reaction. I know there were times when it was all business at the table. My wife does like to get things accomplished looking at the schedule and things like that. We had all business and then the kids would start to squirm around and they didn't want to talk about that. Or there were other things we needed to bring up at the table and the kids didn't want to talk about that.

Even on the fun side, rarely does either vacation or other fun things turn out exactly how you were picturing they were going to turn out. Because you have human beings, a child could get sick, or be disruptive, or be in a bad mood. And at the dinner table, you're getting all the stuff that kids have accumulated throughout the entire day. Insecurities that they've had to deal with and have had to maintain all day long, and they're bringing them to the table, a safe place to unload.

And that's where all the insecurities, all the different frustrations, everything's coming out in a different way behaviorally. And so as you're sitting there seeing the chaos, know this is a product of a lot of things they've eaten all day long emotionally. And so look beyond the behaviors and then look at that and say, "Hey, tell me what happened. You seem frustrated. There must be something that frustrated you today."

Explore some of those by asking questions. Maybe having a board game at the table that the kids love to play. You have it ongoing there at the table. That could be something to break up the mundaneness of it all. Be creative with it. Don't picture the kitchen table as an effective place just because everybody's perfect. It's effective because you're connecting, and love is required when people are at their worst. And so this is an opportunity to show love and patience and to model that. And the more you're calm, you'll see over time things calm down because kids are feeling safe bringing all that emotion to the table.

John Fuller: I so appreciate that. Let's go ahead now and hear more about this concept of mealtime and making it meaningful. Focus president Jim Daly spoke with Ted Cunningham.

Jim Daly: What was your family like before you had this realization that we need to eat in a way that would please God?

Ted Cunningham: Well, when we entered the tween and the teen phase, we lost complete control of our schedule because you're no longer just on a family schedule. You've got school, you've got church, you've got band, you've got soccer, you've got small groups. And we were going in every direction and trying to find intersections during the day. And that usually was at a restaurant, eating out somewhere fast.

As we'd drive by a restaurant we would jump out and just grab something. And then we became that family where we were like, "Well, I don't really want that, but I want that." And so we'd go to two different places and grab it on the way home. It got so chaotic that we said something's got to change because it ultimately affected our health, physically, not just relationally and emotionally, but like, "Okay, we're not eating all that well. Let's just make a few changes here and see if we can bring about a little bit better quality of life."

Jim Daly: And what did you start doing? You begin to express that once a week? You aimed for just one time a week?

Ted Cunningham: We aimed for once a week and let it grow from there. And we thought about the holidays. Holidays are a good time for us because we're not competing with schedules. And so we just loved sitting down as a family. We talk about it in the book. We had one Thanksgiving where we invited friends over from the church, and my parents were there, Amy's parents were there, other family there. And we ended up sitting around that table, I mean, we'd get up every now and then, but we're about eight hours.

It was the center of the day. We ended up having two meals there throughout the day, but it went so fast. It was so enjoyable. And yeah, it was Thanksgiving. There's games on and there's other stuff to do. But we just said, what would happen if we had a little bit of this in our life on a regular basis? Again, we're not doing Thanksgiving every week. We're not going to have a 3,000-calorie meal every day. So we just said, let's just start somewhere, and for us, it was once a week.

Jim Daly: Jean and I, I must say to Jean's credit, we've done a really good job in this area of having dinner every night together. And it's usually a lot of fun. It's 30 to 60 minutes that we'll be at the table, at least. And even last night, Troy was laughing so much milk came out his nose.

Ted Cunningham: Yeah, and those are the moments you go, we can make time for this. We're doing so much other stuff that we can carve out a little bit of time. And if that means you have activities to do, part of school or an assignment or something, and we're done eating, but we're going to stay at the table, go get whatever you got to do, bring it back here, and sit and do it together.

Jim Daly: I like that. So give me the objectives when you're sitting there. Jean tends to be a little more organized that way than I am. She wants a more formal devotion time, like "Today we will look at Second Corinthians." And I did too when the kids were younger. But for me, it's more let's just work the spiritual truths into the conversation, be a little more gentle about it. I think it works more effectively to talk about what's happening at school and, what does the Bible say anything about that? How do you go about looking at that?

Ted Cunningham: This was the hardest for our son and still is. He labored over long meals. I mean, he would be like, "Oh," and every meal started with the same question, "How long are we going to be here?" What was pulling him away? What did he want to go do? He saw it and it's how he's been conditioned his whole life. We go, go, go, go, go. We got stuff to do. So we would sit down and he found it at first boring. We ate, we're done eating. Now what are we still doing here?

So that's when we started to bring in the games. That's when we started to bring in the honor bombardment that we talk about, where we just go around the table. Everyone shares a kind, positive word. We got this from Gary Smalley years ago. And so it's like a game. We see keep going until we run out of things to say about the one person, and then we move on to another person.

I think there's a lot of that you can bring into it, and that's what we tried to bring into the book. I mean, we brought everything from recipes to games to devos, to do more at the table than just eat and ask the same question, "How was your day?" There's more to it than that. There's more you can do to bring about the laughs like you're talking about, be a little more clever about it.

Jim Daly: But let's bring it into reality. Thankfully you have two children and we have two kids as well. And some days they didn't get along all that well. So when you're sitting there saying let's honor the other child, have you ever had, "I really don't feel like doing that, Dad, because..."

Ted Cunningham: Yeah, and you got to know when to play what game. And so we move on to the more competitive games like Monopoly. We play Yahtzee. We love Yahtzee at dinner. That's fun. But we've also wanted to mix it up. So my son got to a place where he was setting up the game before dinner started and we would have to say, "Hey, let's just wait just a little bit on that, Carson. Let's eat first. Let's enjoy the meal that Mom has just prepared and then we'll play the game."

Then we'll get into the game, then we'll do something. Because this digital age that we live in, we've always got to have something in front of us, keeping us busy, keeping us active. And so the opportunity to just slow down, we don't need to be rushed. No technology at the table. Every now and then we bring the technology in if we want to show a video or something or somebody saw something and, "Hey, I saw this thing today made me laugh." But you're using it as an object lesson of some sort. It's more of a lesson than just a mind-numbing surf of Pinterest or Facebook.

Jim Daly: Now you and your wife Amy, you model that well? You're not sneaking emails at the table?

Ted Cunningham: Let's move on to the next subject, Jim. Yes, unless there's a real important call we're waiting for, right? But it's rare.

Jim Daly: That's good, because that's what kids are going to see.

John Fuller: So the clock is going tick, tick, tick, Danny, and parents are thinking, "Wait a minute, I got a teenager and all they want to do is this at the table, or they want to finish and just go to be on the device." How do I make the most of these moments, particularly when the kids are teens or young adults?

Danny Huerta: The first thing to do is just admit that there's something not put in place that is creating that moment as a no-screens type of place. And so for a parent wanting to reset something like this, like a child being on their phone and they just want to leave, you say, "I've learned something recently, and that is that the kitchen table is so important. And I want to value that. We're going to do things differently."

Know that your teen, your child's going to be upset about this and just let them be upset. That's their emotion to have. And so what you can say is, "I value time with you. I love you. And I'm willing to go through all this upsetness because I think you see it as unfair and all of a sudden I'm controlling, but it's not that. I just want to connect with you and I know the time is short. I want to know more about who you are. And so we're going to do mealtime different."

Do one thing different at a time. If you try to change everything at once, it creates chaos and resentment. If you say, "We're going to change this one thing," and then you build from there, starting with the kitchen table, the mealtime, you begin to see good momentum in the relationship. And initially for two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, you may have a pouty kid and a kid that's upset. Just work through that. Be calm. This is a time we're going to be spending together.

If you need to put a timer, I love timers, John. If you can see, 25 minutes, 30 minutes, you say, "Hey, we're going to be at this table." And even if it's silent, you're showing we're going to be here 25, 30 minutes. But find ways to make it an enjoyable time together and have your child participate in giving some insight into that. Now if you're locked up, bring a counselor into the mix. Find a counselor to help you guys repair whatever is creating the division or whatever's happening in the teen where they're just not wanting to connect. Maybe they're super shy and they're overloaded all day long trying to be social at school and they come home and they just want to be quiet. Let's find a way to be quiet but also to gather. And you guys can problem solve on that.

John Fuller: We've got a free article for you to guide you through conversations to have particularly with your teen at the dinner table. It's called "50 Questions to Ask Your Kids at the Dinner Table." Don't ask them all at once. Probably not. Maybe take one or two of these. It's free and the link is in the show notes. And then we've got our free parenting assessment also linked and that is a phenomenal tool.

Danny Huerta: It is. It can be overwhelming for some parents because you have to take it for each child. The information you get with this assessment, just know, it's been researched. It's valid and it's reliable. It gives you insights into your strengths, your two strengths with that one child as far as these seven traits of effective parenting that are research-based and biblically based.

Then two opportunities for growth and some great practical ideas of how you can begin growing, and it will create more connectedness with your child as you practice those. So take that assessment, find it in the show notes. It'll only take about 10 minutes to take the assessment per child. If you have five kids, you could go Monday one, Tuesday the other, Wednesday the other. Just spread it out and then it gives you a nice playbook to work with. And if you feel overwhelmed with all the pages of information you get, start with one trait that you see is a commonality with all the kids. Work on that first.

John Fuller: The bottom line here is at Focus on the Family we want to help you show up as the best mom or dad that you can be. And we've got these resources, these free ones we've talked about today and more all at our website. The links are in the notes and we'd encourage you to donate to the ministry today as you can. We are an ongoing ministry, almost 50 years old now. And we've done this podcast for about 18, 19 years now. And so we'd invite your partnership.

Donate as you can. If you've gotten benefit from the shows, make a gift. If you're brand new, don't worry about it. Listen in and as the Lord allows and as you feel there's benefit, make a contribution. And we'll thank you in advance. And if you love Christian music, you're going to enjoy a new digital radio station we have from Focus on the Family. It features great Christian music and some of the great content that we offer in our podcasts. Look for Focus Live on the Godcaster app and we'll have a link in the show notes. Next time Kay Wyma joins us to talk about small acts of kindness leaving a lasting impression. For now on behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and the team, I'm John Fuller and thanks for joining us for the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast.

Jim Daly: I firmly believe that God gives us the responsibility to train our children in His ways. And that's a huge responsibility. What Focus on the Family did was gave us the resources to do it. I'm Jim Daly. When we work together we can transform our nation one family at a time. Make a monthly pledge today at focusonthefamily.com/joy.