Eating breakfast as a family, pros and cons
There has been much debate about whether or not you should eat breakfast as a family each day. Let's take a look at the pros and cons:
Pros:
- Gives you a chance to evaluate the day. When you have a family, especially a large one, many people have many different activities going on. So, eating breakfast together gives everyone a chance to inform Mom and Dad of their planned activities, and it gives Mom and Dad a chance t figure out a way to make it all work.
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- Breakfast is a great way to start your day off right. Your family has time to bond, enjoy one another, and talk. That is an element that many families are missing these days. So, eat breakfast together, and talk about your previous day, as well as your plans for the current day.
- If you eat breakfast as a family, it gives you a chance to talk to your family about your needs and expectations for the day and week. If you have company coming you can talk to your children about how important it is to keep their rooms clean. You can also use breakfast as a time to divvy out chores, and let everyone know what they can and can't do. If your child has soccer practice, you can tell them at breakfast what time you expect them home. You can tell them what you need them to do when they get home, and what happens when they don't do this.
- Breakfast is a great opportunity for your family to talk, talk about the weather, talk about your family, talk about your goals, talk about what you like for breakfast, or talk about whatever you want. However, if you eat as a family, you have a much higher chance of talking as a family, so be sure to do this.
- Breakfast is a nice time for one on one time with your family. You may have guests over for dinner regularly, but how often do you have people over to breakfast? Most people would answer that question: Almost never. That is the point. If you eat breakfast as a family you can spend time with just your family, no interruptions.
- The wake up time for the members of your family may be different. If you are planning to eat breakfast as a family you all need to be up at the same time. If you have children in elementary school, and children in high school, they are going to be going to school at different times. High school starts much earlier than elementary. So, the choice you have to make is whether or not eating breakfast as a family is worth getting your little ones up an hour earlier. Sometimes, depending on what Mom and Dad do, they may have to leave for work rather early. So, you may be looking at getting the entire family up way too early for the day they have. So, if your family has a really varied schedule when it comes to waking up, you are going to want to probably skip the whole eating breakfast together as a family.
- If you eat as a family, you will probably want to cook ONE meal. However, not everyone in your family will like the same foods. So, one con is that making your family eat together is the ability to eat what you want changes some. It is much easier to make eggs for Dad at 7, and pancakes for kids at 9.
