# Family meals

**How important are family meals?**

Whether and how often the family eats together, and whether screens are allowed at the table.

In short: Parents choose between 4 main approaches: Nightly sit-down, no screens; Several times a week; A different daily ritual; No fixed routine. Evidence: your call. No outcome evidence picks a winner. Preference, culture, money and logistics decide. Best settled: toddler.

- Area: Food and eating
- Evidence: Your call
- Best settled: Toddler
- First published: 2026-10-03
- Last updated: 2026-10-05
- Page: https://www.raisingyourchild.com/topics/food-and-eating--family-meals

## Family meals: what are the options?

1. **Nightly sit-down, no screens**: You eat dinner together every night with no screens.
2. **Several times a week**: You eat together a few times a week.
3. **A different daily ritual**: You keep a different shared moment each day, such as breakfast.
4. **No fixed routine**: You do not have a set family meal.

## Family meals: what does the evidence say?

**Your call.** No outcome evidence picks a winner. Preference, culture, money and logistics decide.

Benefits shrink under stricter analysis and appear mainly where relationships are already strong

Sources:

- [Meier & Musick](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.12079)

## What else is worth knowing?

Eating together regularly is linked with better wellbeing in children, and it is one of the most common family rituals. Work schedules and activities make it hard. The form matters less than having a regular time together.

## Questions to ask each other

- How often do we picture eating together, and who cooks?
- Are phones and screens allowed at the table?
- What happens when schedules make it hard?

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General information, not medical advice. Two parents can each answer this and compare: https://www.raisingyourchild.com/explore?cat=food-and-eating&topic=food-and-eating--family-meals