Every parent I know struggles with some aspect of family mealtimes. And, I believe that family meals are so important that I wanted to help turn struggles into successes. So, I created this guide- full of tools that help shift family meals into moments that nourish our bodies but also hearts, minds and connections. Through my own successes, failures, and lessons from my community, I have compiled tips and tricks as to what truly works for parents of all types and families of different temperaments. Keep reading, (and clicking) to access a four-part guide that helps parents move from mealtimes that make us want to throw food at our table-mates—to ones where we actually enjoy the company, even if the spaghetti still ends up on the floor. Today, we start at the beginning, with family dinner expectations. Keep reading for why this matters and how dinner can get better today.
If you’ve ever thought, Why is this so hard?, you’re not alone. The good news? Mealtimes don’t have to feel like a battleground. By the end of this four-part series, you will have tools and resources to make a real difference for your family. After all, this isn’t about achieving the perfect family meal—it’s about creating a realistic, repeatable mealtime routine that works for your family’s unique reality.
How Do You Start Writing a Recipe for Good Family Meals?
It all starts with letting go of unrealistic expectations and adapting to what truly works.
Welcome, you are here at Part 1 of the Guide to Better Family Meals. My research revealed that the most efficient first step to correcting those meal times that make us wish we hadn’t even bothered is to confront our own expectations. Before we fix dinner, we need to find a healthy recipe to follow. (Once you are done with Part 1, check out Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.)
How to Get the Most Out of This Article
This article is part one of the four-part series. This first installment is designed to help you rethink family dinner expectations and set realistic goals for mealtimes that actually work for your family. So, welcome to part 1! Here is what you will find and simple instructions on how to engage:
Discover Why Family Meals Feel So Hard: Solidarity in Your Struggles and Hope for A Way Forward
Find the Roots of Your Mealtime Frustrations
Take Concrete Steps for A Mealtime that “Tastes Good”
The key is to take what serves you and leave the rest. Begin a little at a time because that is the only way we can make any type of change.
Why Family Meals Feel So Hard
Many parents enter dinnertime with high hopes—expecting connection, cooperation, and meaningful conversation. But so often, reality looks different. Family dinner expectations vs. reality rarely match up. Then, we feel frustrated and discouraged. These expectations, shaped by childhood experiences and social influences, often dictate how we handle picky eaters, table manners, spills, and my personal pet peeve—fart jokes.
The Story of My Family Meal Time Expectations
For years, I slaved over a dinner catered to everyone’s taste. Then, I expected us to sit down and enjoy the meal while having meaningful conversation. My family of origin had these types of meals. While often rushed and not always full of happy campers, we connected over at least one meal every day and talked about how we were doing. And so, when I assessed my grown up family meal times, I was disappointed every night. Someone didn’t like something about the food. Then, some other person hated everything because of day’s gravitational pull, because why else were they livid about their curated mealtime? The final straw was inevitably one child who would start chucking food on the floor.
For some insane reason, it took me years to let go of my vision of a “family dinner.” I exposed the fact that I expected family dinners to have that same “feel” as my childhood table. Finally, I have accepted that most nights, someone is going to be frustrated about something. Whether it’s the salt in the soup, gravity’s incessant presence, or the injustice of food rules, my goal is no longer delectable food with deep conversation. Now, my goals are achievable. First, feed everyone nutritious sustenance. Second, show up. Finally, teach people to be as present as possible in that moment. After all, my grown up family is comprised of 5 different humans than those people that once sat around that round kitchen table I experienced as a child and teen.
Your Meal Time Experiences and Struggles
If aspects of this sound familiar, you’re not alone. I spent years tweaking every detail of dinner, thinking I could perfect the recipe for a happy family meal. And, most of my friends report similar anecdotes as well.
But what if the real issue isn’t the kids, the schedules, or even the food? What if the problem is the recipe itself—one we inherited without question?
Before we talk about problems specific strategies to make mealtimes smoother (which we look at in the upcoming posts), let’s pause. What ingredients are you bringing to your family table, and where did they come from? That is the best place to start.
We Don’t Come to the Table with an Empty Plate
We don’t enter parenthood as blank slates and this holds true with family meal expectations. Sometimes, we unknowingly carry the weight of society’s version of the “perfect family dinner.” And, whether we realize it or not, our own childhood experiences shape how we think family meals should be. Some of us grew up in homes where mealtimes were tense, chaotic, or disconnected. For some, dinner was a time where children were expected to be ‘seen and not heard.’ Maybe you had rigid rules and strict routines. Others experienced t.v. dinners on the couch and still others had t.v. worthy meal times.
Today, many of us approach family dinner with a more flexible, child-centered approach—but that doesn’t mean the contrast isn’t jarring. If you grew up in an environment where structure and silence were the norms, the noise, mess, and constant interruptions of modern mealtimes can feel overwhelming. Maybe your current dinners spark an inner critic that calls your mealtimes “bad parenting.” Or, if we remember an almost idyllic mealtime our daily reality feels like failure. However we perceive the similarities and differences between past and present, these childhood experiences shape how we approach family meals with our own children.
How You Can Move From Disappointment to A Mealtime Recipe that Works
Take a moment and think about the messages you received about meals growing up. Mealtime stress often comes from trying to recreate something we experienced or witnessed, without realizing our own families have different needs. Or, we are vehemently reacting against scary, shaming, or negative food memories. Adjusting family dinner expectations to fit your reality—not an idealized version or a “proper” version—is key to making mealtimes more enjoyable. By thinking through these reflection questions and/or using the printable reflection guide (black and white version here) you will expose those hidden sources of stress that are derailing your experiences at meal times.
Running the risk of sounding like a pop-psychologist, the fact remains, that if we do not confront our underlying expectations they will continue to be the expectations we use to engage the world around us. Thankfully, it isn’t hard to to discover those hidden expectations. All you need is a little time and a willingness to look at them. First, discover what your expectations are (here or below). Then, you can decide if you want to keep them around or ditch them (or a few of them) for some new family dinner expectations that fit the members of your family.
📝 Reflection Questions:
- What was dinnertime like in my childhood home?
- What do I want to recreate? What do I want to leave behind?
- Where do my expectations come from—my own childhood, extended family, social media, t.v. shows, all of the above?
- Am I setting the bar at “perfection” or at what actually works for my family?
- What mealtime experience am I going to work towards? (Keeping my current family, and our present situation at the forefront.)
If that goes well, you might consider writing this all down someplace where you can share it with a partner or spouse. Some kids might even enjoy getting in on the planning and evaluation stage. Would it work for your family to do a discussion about what is working and what is not working for each person? Don’t forget to do your “me work” before the “we work” so that those underlying expectations don’t derail your new efforts.
Mastering the Meal: Finding Your Family’s Signature Recipe
Building a family dinner habit happens one meal at a time. Just like a young chef learning to cook, you have to experiment, make mistakes, and adjust to discover what truly works. Some meals will be chaotic. Others will feel like a breakthrough. Over time, small tweaks will lead to something that actually fits your real-life family, at your real-life table.
The more we adjust, adapt, and redefine family dinner expectations to work for our unique households, the more we will see our family recipe turn out great family meals.
🔎 Looking for more strategies? Check out Part 2 for how to make family dinner less stressful with 7 practical solutions that actually work to solve real mealtime struggles. Need help with constant interruptions, picky eating battles, and the challenge of getting everyone to stay at the table?
🍽️ Still searching for the right food recipes? Just like family dinners take time to get right, so do the meals themselves. Check out my other articles for simple, stress-free family meal ideas. For even more help you can find meal planning strategies and freezer meal ideas to take the headache out of deciding what’s for dinner.
Need extra support on getting dinnertime to a “happy time?” Part 3 of our series helps you tailor family meals to fit with the exact developmental stage(s) sitting at your dinner table. Part 4 shows up and offers 6 controversial ideas to solve the biggest mealtime struggles, since maybe all the other fixes are failing.