What Your Children Really Want for Dinner Is You

Travis Hiland
Mar 15, 2017 11:27 AM

I was drawn this week to Dallin H. Oak's talk, “Good, Better, Best” and the principle of putting first things first. “In choosing how we spend time as a family,” Oaks teaches, “we should be careful not to exhaust our available time on things that are merely good and leave little time for that which is better or best.” This principle is relevant in every stage of life.

Learning how to recognize when the “good” becomes the enemy of the “best,” has been a lifelong pursuit for me. If I had any success with this principle of time-management in my personal, family, and professional life it arrived with as many failures. Sometimes, I allow those failures to overshadow successes.

In a tender moment last week, when my two adult daughters were over for supper, the conversation found its way to a reflection of their childhood. My eldest daughter shared with me a memory of her and I playing chess, and a word of encouragement (which I do not remember) that I shared with her after she made a successful move. She said in that moment she discovered confidence in herself. Both of my daughters reflected on the hours we would spend laying on the trampoline after supper counting satellites and shooting stars. These precious girls are my treasures. In this seemingly small, unsolicited, reflection, they redeemed me from the grief of my ruminations of all the ways I fell short.

I don't really have any grand epiphanies to share. I just wanted to shout out a big AMEN to the principles taught by Oaks, in particular the following three:

1. "The number of those who report that their 'whole family usually eats dinner together' has declined 33 percent. This is most concerning because the time a family spends together 'eating meals at home [is] the strongest predictor of children’s academic achievement and psychological adjustment.' Family mealtimes have also been shown to be a strong bulwark against children’s smoking, drinking, or using drugs. There is inspired wisdom in this advice to parents: What your children really want for dinner is you."

2. "A friend took his young family on a series of summer vacation trips, including visits to memorable historic sites. At the end of the summer he asked his teenage son which of these good summer activities he enjoyed most. The father learned from the reply, and so did those he told of it. 'The thing I liked best this summer,' the boy replied, 'was the night you and I laid on the lawn and looked at the stars and talked.' Super family activities may be good for children, but they are not always better than one-on-one time with a loving parent."

3. “Vigorously act to increase family togetherness and one-on-one time. Team sports and technology toys like video games and the Internet are already winning away the time of our children and youth. Surfing the Internet is not better than strengthening the family. Some young men and women are skipping healthy youth activities or cutting family time in order...to pursue various entertainments. Some young people are amusing themselves to death—spiritual death.”