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NEW YORK - Want to bond with your broody teenagers? Try eating dinner with them five times a week. A poll has found this keeps them off drugs and alcohol - and the teens also enjoy it.
The survey reaffirmed previous studies that found teenagers who ate dinner as a family five or more times a week were less likely to use drugs, smoke, or drink alcohol than peers who ate with their families twice a week or less.
But contrary to many parents' expectations, the poll of 1,063 teenagers and 550 parents, conducted by QEV Analytics, found most teenagers actually wanted to eat with their families.
"Overall about 84 per cent of the kids said they would prefer to have dinner with their parents," said Elizabeth Planet, project manager of the survey commissioned by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at New York's Columbia University.
"These are teenagers whose parents will tell you they are difficult and don't want to talk. This is not the sense we are getting from the kids themselves. They prefer it."
The survey comes amid a growing push by some parents and family groups for the return of family meals which have declined sharply since the 1970s.
A UNICEF report earlier this year put the United States at the bottom of the richest nations when it came to eating as families, with only 65 per cent of 15-year-olds eating the main meal of the day with their parents several times a week. In France, Italy and Russia, it was more than 90 per cent.
The fourth CASA survey on the importance of family dinners found that 59 per cent of teens surveyed between April 2 and May 13 reported having dinner with their families at least five times a week.
Teens who had two or less meals a week with their family were three and a half times more likely to have abused prescription medication, three times more likely to have used marijuana, and one and a half times more likely to drink alcohol.
The teens who ate regularly with their families also got better grades, with 64 per cent reporting mostly As and Bs compared to 49 per cent of other teens.
"These statistics about the link between the likelihood of drug use and the frequency of dinners always surprises me even though we see it year in and year out," said Planet.
But for the first time they asked about the best time of day to talk, and the dinner table emerged as the favourite with nearly half of parents and teens - 47 per cent of each.
"There is nothing magical about dinner but it comes at the end of the day when you are winding down and it is a nice time for people to come together," said Planet.
"You don't see the same thing at breakfast time. Everyone is rushing out of the door."
- REUTERS
