I Have to Sit at the Table?

"What, we have to sit at the table for dinner?" This question is asked a lot of us by the foster kids in the beginning of their stay. We would have never guessed that it would be such an issue for them. This was something that caught us off guard when we first started foster parenting. We would call all the kiddos to dinner and the teens would sheepishly come and look around at the table all set and then look up and ask if it was OK that they eat in their room.
We would then explain that "at our house, we eat dinner at the table every night with the family", and that that was where they could eat too.
They reluctantly would sit down with us, but then would eat as quickly as possible to be able to leave the table..

..

.and that's when they learned the second rule...

.
..

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"everyone stays at the table till EVERYONE is done".
I know, we're so mean! Dinner is super important to me. It's the only time of the day where we all sit together for a meal and converse and laugh and share stories.
Most foster kids have NEVER sat down at a table for dinner. Did you hear that? NEVER.
It blew my mind, but then again, it did make sense.
You read all those statistics that put "healthy" families in a category of people that tend to eat together more regularly and more "troubled" families that generally don't sit together, but to actually meet children who have NEVER sat down at a table before was mind boggling.

When we started asking our foster kids questions like, "So, where do you usually sit when you eat?" or "Have you ever sat at a dinner table?", we got answers like, "Oh, we sit on the couch and watch T.
V.
", or "I just eat in my room" or "We all eat at different times". One teen said to us, "Oh yes, we have sat at the table before." And then she remembered that it was "only for Thanksgiving and that it usually always ended in a fight and everyone just eating in their rooms.
" So, something like eating at a dinner table nightly, which we take for granted, becomes a pretty big deal when the foster kids first come.
Some treat it like torture; having to sit with everyone for 20 minutes really is just not what they want to do! Some actually embrace the idea and are so happy to have cooked meals, and not microwaved meals.
And some have never had that much food before and sit and over-eat, thinking they won't get this much food again.
Over time, they all come to the realization that they actually enjoy dinner and getting to tell everyone about their day and learning to look people in the eye while talking to them.

They learn how to be part of a family and hopefully will remember dinner at the Raichart's when they are older.
My encouragement to you is to sit down tonight for dinner and enjoy your family. And when your kids have friends over, make 'em all sit at the table with you and torture them It really is for their own good!