S2 Episode 9: What’s For Dinner - Does Tech Deserve A Seat At The Table? // Bri DeRosa of The Family Dinner Project

"(There are) really cool ways to use technology at the table in a healthy, pro-social way."

- Bri DeRosa

Healthy Screen Habit Takeaway

Show Transcript

Hillary Wilkinson (00:03):

Family dinners have long been stressed as being a keystone event in child development. In fact, for more than 20 years, scientific research has shown why family mealtimes are so important, linked to everything from obesity to academic success there can be no doubt that family mealtime is important, but honestly, the thought of pulling off a dinner together every night has so many parents spinning into the, "I know I should, but we've got soccer and violin and homework, and nobody likes what I cook anyways" zone. So this is why I reached out to today's guest Bri DeRosa is the content manager for the Family Dinner Project. A nonprofit initiative started in 2010, which champions, family dinner as an opportunity for family members to connect with each other through food, fun and conversation about things that matter. But also, and this is what I love, the Family Dinner Project provides the "how" for today's busy families. I'm super excited to get us all, some real-world advice and tips on how to successfully pull off family dinners and what role technology can play in all of this. Welcome to the Healthy Screen Habits Podcast, Bri  DeRosa.

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (01:29):

Thanks so much for having me, Hillary. I'm really excited to be here.

Hillary Wilkinson (01:34):

Uh, I'm excited. You're here too. I feel like I'm going to learn so much

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (01:38):

No pressure,



Hillary Wilkinson (01:39):

Right, right. I know I've already, I've already tried out some of your recipes. So can you tell me, how did the family dinner project come to be? Can you give us just kind of a brief origin story?

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (01:55):

Sure. Yeah. So in 2010, as you astutely pointed out to your listeners, um, The Family Dinner Project was founded and it was founded by primarily two people. One is Shelly London, uh, who was at that point in time, a retired corporate executive who was, um, taking a leadership course and looking towards a second act as a philanthropic leader in the community. And she was at Harvard at the time and met Dr. Anne Fishel, uh, who is a child and family therapist, and is actually dedicated to family dinners as a mechanism for family bonding and healthy communication. The two of them together discovered all of the research that you briefly mentioned that shows that kids are healthier. They're stronger emotionally and socially. They're stronger academically. And their parents are happier and healthier too, if everyone has regular family meals. And so they sort had this "aha" moment! Oh my goodness.

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (03:01):

What if we started a project that was dedicated to helping families actually pull this off ?  Because we all know you're supposed to do it, but to your point, there's soccer and violin and all the things, and it can be really difficult. And oftentimes families come to the table and are like, okay, we're here: Now, what? Right, right. Um, and then it feels less, um, connective and less bonding and more, oh, okay. Let's just eat and get through this. And so the family dinner project was founded really to, um, promote positive mealtimes and positive behaviors at mealtime and to make it easier for families to gather and have food, fun, and conversation.

Hillary Wilkinson (03:45):

I'm so glad these women came together and did this. It doesn't surprise me at all that we had moms being a driver because moms rule the world, as we know. And, um, what I really like the accessibility of the whole, when you log onto the website, it, it sets you up for success on how to do this. So you kind of touched briefly on some of the research with that backs up, why family mealtimes are important. Is there anything else you'd like to add as to kind of like what, like, if you and I were sitting down for coffee and I said like, okay, so what are your top three reasons do you think why family mealtimes are important?

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (04:35):

Yeah. So, I mean, there are so many reasons and it's hard to just pick three.

Hillary Wilkinson (04:40):

Oh, sure

.

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (04:41):

But I would say at this, at this moment in time, myself, as a parent, I'm looking at the landscape around us and I'm thinking of the things that we're all kind of chiefly concerned with right now when it comes to our kids. And one of those things is resilience, right? We've just been through everybody's in some, in some ways still going through this very challenging time. Um, and having resilience built into our kids is such a powerful thing to help them overcome obstacles. Family dinners are actually shown to promote resilience in kids. Kids are more likely to bounce back from bullying. They're more likely to have high self-esteem. They're more likely to have, um, more positive pro-social interactions when they have family dinners. Um, that's so that's a big one for me, another one. And I, I love to bring this one up because it's one of the things that I think no one would guess, but family dinners are actually correlated and I should say family meals. It doesn't have to be dinners.

Hillary Wilkinson (05:45):

Right. I know there've been times in my family when we've had to modify and maybe for, you know, fall sport seasons, we've done family breakfast instead.

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (06:03):

Which is such a great thing to do by the way. And I'll tell your listeners, we have a whole section of our site devoted to family breakfasts. Um, so you can check that out as well. But, uh, yeah, so family meals in, in general are correlated with actually a higher literacy rate. Kids have better literacy skills, young kids, uh, learn more new words at the family dinner table than they do. Even when you read aloud to them. They, um, they learn better storytelling and sequencing skills, which helped to boost them when they then go on to be early readers. Um, and what we find, uh, when we look at the research is that kids who have more frequent family dinners with better conversation when they're five go on by eighth grade to have higher reading levels. So there's a lot packed into that, but family dinner improves literacy.

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (07:00):

And, uh, one thing that I always like to throw a bone to the parents, right? It's not just about your kids and family meals can happen. Even if you don't have kids at home, right? Kids are not what make a family, um, adults who have regular family meals tend to be less stressed overall. And if they are parents of young kids, they tend to actually have a higher satisfaction rate with their marriages. They're happier with the state of their relationship when they're giving space and time for those family meals, which sounds to me so crazy. Right? If you think about it, because we've all had those meals with the little ones where it's like, everybody's, you know, the food is flying and somebody is crying and somebody's sock came off and you're like, I just want to go to bed. I don't want to do the dishes and get through the rest of this dinner. Um, but it's important to do it. We know now it's important, those meals, even the chaotic ones with the socks falling off and the people flailing in the milk spilling, um, they're really good for you. They're good for your relationship,

Hillary Wilkinson (08:05):

Right? It's so amazing to me how, when we really start diving into things, it, the like, it's that whole, just the beauty of the simplicity of basics, you know, the, I mean, the basics of just sitting down as a family and having a meal, there's so much embedded in that where, I mean, we, we strongly tout attachment style parenting, and that's what that is. You are creating kids at a table who are feeling safe, seen, and secure, you know? So I mean there, that doesn't surprise me to hear you say that. I did not know about the literacy. It makes sense to me 100%, but it's yeah.

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (08:55):

And by the way, I will, I will say, you know, we're very pro reading to your kids, right? Like sometimes people hear me say that and they're like, "so I don't have to read to my kids?". I'm like, "No, no, read to your kids and eat with them." Um, but you know, to your point, um, actually, you know, the great thing you said, you said all of these things are happening at the family, at the family mealtimes, right? There's so much packed into a family meal. And this is something that I really want to drive home to people because we often hear from people, okay, that's all great. But can't kids get those same benefits from other interventions, right? If I read to my kids, they get vocabulary building. If I, um, talk to my kids on the way to, and from soccer practice in the car, they get the conversation and the one-on-one time, can't you build all of these different benefits of family meals through other means. And the answer is yes, of course, other aspects of your lives as a family and of your kids' lives will have some of these benefits. However, family meals are the only activity that you can do that provide all of the benefits: physical, nutritional, social emotional, academic, you know, relational, all of these things, lower risk of eating disorders, lower risk of alcoholism, lower risk of substance use of any kind. All of these things are correlated with family dinners. And, um, you can't get that all as a package with any one single other activity.

Hillary Wilkinson (10:31):

I'm convinced. Okay. When we come back, we're going to take a dive into technology at the table.

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Hillary Wilkinson:

 Bri de Rosa is part of the Family Dinner Project team that works online and at community events to help families increase the frequency meaning and long-term benefits of their shared meals.  Based in Boston at mass general psychiatry academy, the family dinner project website gives access to recipes, fun conversation starters, and more so Bri, I have to ask - one of the things that we at Healthy Screen Habits recommend is maintaining tech free spaces and places. So a common place we often refer to keep tech free, as an example is the dinner table. But you guys are the experts here. What are your tech recommendations given by The Family Dinner Project?

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (12:38):

It's such a great question. And you know, the first thing I'm going to say, and this is going to sound a little bit like a cop out, you're going to be like, why am I talking to this lady? Is that, you know, we always say to people, look, we're not the technology police, okay? It's not up to us to tell you how much or whether you should have technology involved in your dinners. However, we believe that what you should do is make a first and informed decision about how much or whether to include technology at your mealtimes. And secondly, if you are going to include technology at your mealtimes, we say always, it must be as a tool of connection and enhancing your conversation and family time, not a tool of distraction. So for example, you know, you might have, um, some families who want to go device-free at dinner and that's a wonderful thing.

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (13:38):

Lots of families do that. My family generally is tech-free at dinner. Um, we don't feel the need to have it. A lot of families are like that. However, there are families out there with all different types of needs and setups. One really good example of families who might need to include technology at the table are families of kids with special needs who actually use their technology either as assistive communication devices or to help them calm and regulate and self-sooth. And we would never want to say to a family that is dealing with, um, various special needs or challenges that they should not allow that device to happen at the table. There's also, of course, we're all familiar with the teens and tweens who might be so reluctant to come to the table. If the phone's not in their hand, that it becomes a power struggle.

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (14:30):

Now, if that's your dynamic and that's a power struggle that you haven't solved yet. One thing you can do is try to help the phone become a tool of fun and communication. You might have a photo caption challenge. You might, um, go online and play Google Feud together and let your kid use their phone to pull up the Google Feud questions. You might use the phone to settle a bet. If you're, if you're doing trivia or some type of conversation where there's actually a right or wrong answer, and you need to get to the bottom of that, you can use the phone that way, you can play selfie hot potato, pass it around. And when the timer goes off, the person holding the phone takes a selfie, and it makes a nice document of your family dinner, all of these things, and more are examples of ways that you can allow a device to come to family dinner in a way that's pro-social and proactive and managed. However, there's a lot of gray area. There's a lot of in-between and you can certainly do other things. You know, there are things like having the one check rule, right?

Hillary Wilkinson (15:41):

What is the one check rule?

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (15:43):

One check rule means I'm not quite ready. And by the way, adults tend to be even more tethered to their devices than kids. So I'm going to be fair here. We're going to say it's mom or dad. Who's not ready to come to the table without their phone. Right? They're worried. They're going to miss that work email. They're worried they're going to, you know, miss something important. Um, what we mean by the one check rule is you put the phone face down in the middle of the table and you have one opportunity during the meal to say, I'm going to take a break and check and you get five minutes to check the phone. And then it goes back in the middle of the table and you resume your family time together. So that's one way to kind of wean off devices. Another way is to have, um, kind of a friendly bet going if you're all bringing your devices to the table, because you're not ready to cut them loose yet, put them in the middle. And the first person to reach does the dishes. There are a lot of ways that you can kind of operationalize this to make it fun and not make it "thou shalt not have thy device at thy dinner," right? Which sometimes just sets things up to be adversarial. And we never want people coming to the table in an attitude that's adversarial or stressed or strained. We always want to work with the challenge and the moment to make the mealtime positive, the atmosphere needs to be welcoming.

Hillary Wilkinson (17:05):

Mm. I love that. I love your, uh, your very real life scenarios because you're right. Every family brings to the table, all these different variables of what's going on in each day. But I think the biggest takeaway is like, as you said, to make sure that that tech use is intentional. So we're just not letting the tech drive the, the culture of the meal, so to speak, but you're keeping it very intentional and using it as a tool for fun or tool for something along those signs. 

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (17:39):

Absolutely. And, you know, we, we say one of the things we used to say was, you know, don't use it to talk to people who aren't physically present, right? Um, so like, if you're, if you've got your phone at the table, you shouldn't be texting a friend who's not there. However, um, due to both the pandemic and to our ongoing, we've had a lot of work with military families over the years. We've sort of adapted our stance on that, which is yes, for most of us, you should not be using that device to communicate with somebody who's not there. However, um, thanks to the advent of zoom and all types of other connective technologies. You can actually have a family meal with someone who's not there. You can actually, you know, put the laptop on the table and have grandma and grandpa there with you or a family member who's deployed on a military mission halfway around the world. They can zoom in for family dinner time and, you know, play a game with you or answer some questions, be part of the conversation. And that to me is a really cool way to use technology at the table in a healthy pro-social way.

Hillary Wilkinson (18:45):

Right,  using it to connect. And I think what you bring up is super important where, you know, sometimes we set rules and you feel like, "Oh, but that's the rule we have to stay by that". Not recognizing that, you know, technology has changed over the years. And so what maybe used to be a hard, fast rule of no tech at the table is like you said, I mean, with the advent of all the video conferencing apps now it's can be very inclusive of other family members.  I remember during quarantine, there was a cartoon that went around where it was Thanksgiving dinner, 2020, where it was one person at the table and all of these laptops and all these individual faces. And I just thought, wow, sign of the times. But I mean, but it's true. You can do that now.

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (19:47):

It's true. It's true. And actually, I'm just going to put a little shout out here that if you are doing that for some reason, at Thanksgiving time, we have a couple of things that people can check out. Um, we have on our Thanksgiving landing page, which is just the family dinner project.org/thanksgiving, we have two virtual toolkits. One of them is a full virtual dinner party guide, all the different ways that you can use zoom, um, and other different platforms to have a really fun family dinner, online things, games that you can play, conversation starters, you can, you can use and things that you can do via laptop that you really wouldn't do in real life that actually promote bonding. So that's one thing we have. And then another thing we have is our Thanksgiving virtual care package, which is a set of resources that you can send online to someone who's having Thanksgiving separately from you. And they can download those things. They can print those things. There are really nice things. Some placemats with conversation starters, some different instructions for different games, recipe ideas, all kinds of stuff. And you can both know that you've got the same resources and you're going to be in two different locations, but you can use those same care package elements to have kind of a shared meal experience.

Hillary Wilkinson (21:08):

That is so cool. I love that. I love that. Talk about like, this is where technology is just awesome, right? I mean, you can span time, time zones, travel, whatever, while keeping people safe. And I just, this is where you go, “ It's amazing. It's amazing. The world that we live in!”

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (21:30):

It is, but it's also important to keep those boundaries for yourself and know: What am I doing with the technology? Why am I doing it? What are we saying yes to, why are we saying yes. And how are we doing it in a way that is responsible and healthy and fun and exciting for our family and it's going to help us grow together. Right. Yeah.

Hillary Wilkinson (21:53):

Right, right. And that kind of gets to a, one of your toolsets also that I found very, um, very applicable to real life is this goal setting portion, which was on your calendar page. And, um, so I was giving, um, Bri - you full credit for, for this acronym of SMART, for "smart goals". Apparently after chatting around, I'm about the last person in North America to recognize that smart goal setting is something that's been around. But so, you know, that whole, like, there's, uh, you know, I just have to, uh, recognize that, you know, I've been out of the workplace, I've been an at-home mom for, so it's, um, but anyways, the acronym of smart I think is just, it's really good. And it, um, it gets each family to customize their goals, this is also what I love about the family dinner project is you're you, you don't come in with this didactic message of, you must have dinner, you know, six nights a week.

Hillary Wilkinson (23:08):

It's like, okay, if you're not having family dinner at all right now, do you think you can pull it off once next week? You know? And it looks like a calendar, it  has an area that saved for recipes and conversation starters and fun activities. And I love that each family gets to customize it. So, um, now that I've, now that I've kind of prepped this SMART goal, would you mind giving the, what each letter stands for? Because I just think it's very, it's very accessible. And like I said, you know, I may have someone living in a cave adjacent to mine who doesn't know this amazing, acronym!

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (23:46):

No, I think that's great. And you know, I, I would love to take credit for it, but yeah, sadly it's, um, something I learned, uh, at another point in time from someone else. So it's great that, you know, we can all, we can all spread the good word about SMART goals. Um, so what, what we mean by smart goals are they should be Specific. They should be Measurable. They should be Actionable. They should be Realistic and they should be Time bound. So essentially when you set a goal, you need to really be clear about what it is. Not just like, oh, we're going to have family dinner, but like, we're going to have to your point, 1 family dinner next week, because we don't have family dinner right now. And we'd like to start, or, um, Hey, we do have family dinners, but I feel like we really are in a conversation rut.

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (24:34):

So our goal is going to be to try three new conversation starters every night of the week. Right? Whatever your goal is, make it specific and make it measurable, measurable in this context is pretty easy. Right. Did you have the dinner? Did you not have the dinner? Did you try the conversation starters? Did you not? But just to know, kind of what you're shooting for, um, actionable means is this, is this something that you can actually take a concrete action about, right? You can really identify a step that you can take to make this happen. Um, realistic means let's meet people where they are. So to your point, like, yeah, we're not going to tell you that you have to have family dinner six nights a week. My kids are 12 and 15. We eat together almost every night, but there are definitely weeks where I'm not hitting six family dinners a week.

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (25:25):

I can't tell somebody else what's right for them. But so realistically is one meal a week the best goal for you? Is three meals a week, the best goal for you? Are you going to try to go from zero to 60 in, you know, two days, not a great choice, scale it, keep it small and manageable. And then, then time-bound right. Which just means don't let this drag on forever. Think about when you want to start. And when you want to look back and say, what have we achieved? Is it one week? Is it one month? What, what are you realistically going to try to set in front of yourself as kind of the hill that you're going to climb, right. And how long is it going to take you to get there? So that's SMART goals. And I love that you brought up this goal setting tool.

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (26:09):

I do want to tell your listeners that, you know, our whole site is free to everyone. Everything we have is free. We're a nonprofit organization housed at Mass General Hospital. We're not making money off of your, your web use. We promise. Um, but the one, one thing that is, or not the one thing, but one of the things that are actually sort of protected are these goal setting tools, this calendar tool, you need to have a logged in account, which is easy to set up. It's just, you know, you set it up, it's your name and an email address that we can use to get in touch with you if we need to, and you can set up your password and your email preferences, and you can tell us not to bother you and all of those things, and we're not collecting anybody's personal data or anything like that, but it's just a way for you to be able to keep secure your own area of our site, to have something associated just with you, that you can set your goals, manage your calendar, save recipes and conversation starters and things from our site.

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (27:13):

And I'll have it all in one place as an account that belongs to you so that we can keep that safe for you. That's, that's what the family accounts are about. And so I'm just letting people know that if you're on our site and you're looking for that, and you're like, I can't find this calendar that's because you need to sign up. And when you sign up, you'll see a button that says "my tools," and then you'll be able to get there.

Hillary Wilkinson (27:33):

Wonderful. We're going to take a short break. And when we come back, I'm going to ask Bri for her healthy screen habit.

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Hillary Wilkinson (27:57):

My guest is Bri DeRosa: content manager at The Family Dinner Project an organization committed to connecting families through food, fun and good conversation. Bri, on every episode of the podcast, I ask each guest for a healthy screen habit. This is a tip or takeaway that our listeners can put into place in their own home. Do you have one for us?

Bri DeRosa - The Family Dinner Project (28:28):

I sure do. Um, so we touched on this a little bit already Hillary, but I would really just want to drive home to people that the first step is to decide which kind of "technology at the table" family you are. What is that measurable, achievable, realistic goal for your family that reflects where you are at this point in time. Are you going to be device-free? Are you going to be device friendly? And if so, what are the ways that you're going to use those devices to connect? And I'm just going to put in a little plug here that, uh, we have a new page on our website, the family dinner project.org/technology at the table. Um, and that page has tips and resources to help you make that decision about what's the right level of technology use or no device use at all at your table. How do you make that decision? And then a lot of really neat games and activity ideas to help you use the devices to turn the meal time into something that's positive and fun for everybody. And doesn't detract from the family time that you're trying to build.

Hillary Wilkinson (29:40):

Wonderful. It was a tip and a tool. You got, you got a double header.

Bri:

There you go. 

Hillary Wilkinson:

Thank you so much for sharing your tips and teaching us about SMART goals, I won't forget that now. And one of which will be to share more family dinners.