Breaking the routine in favour of Family

In the family Room, we often talk about the importance of meal times; those precious moments spent discussing the day’s activities, high’s and low’s and anything else that might make for interesting conversation with our kids.

Tonight, I was tired, hot and my husband was going to be late. It would have been easier to have fed the kids last night’s lasagna, and then put them to bed early. Once they were in bed, I could have relaxed in front of the TV or read a magazine, happy in the knowledge that my kids were ‘out of the way.” Instead, I decided to make our meal time a priority. It took longer to prepare a meal for all of us, we ate a bit later, but in the end it was worth it. I even made it a little special. We ate outside under the pergola, listened to Christmas music and talked about our day.

When I asked my seven year old her ‘high’ for the day, she said: “sitting here with you and having dinner” … right away, I knew I had made the right decision.

As the queen of the routine, I do find it hard to operate outside of the time I have allotted for each activity. However, sometimes, just sometimes, we need to throw the routine out the window and focus on what’s important – our relationship with our family!

Nicki Partridge
©thefamilyroom 2006