MATT LAUER, co-host:
This morning on
TODAY'S FAMILY
, we're talking about the family
dinner
. How many times a week does your entire family sit down for a meal -- no cell phones, no
TV
, just time together and a really good meal?
Laurie David
is an environmental activist, also
Academy Award-winning
producer and author of the
new book, "The Family Dinner:
Great
Ways
to
Connect
with
Your Kids One Meal
at a
Time
."
Laurie
, nice to see you. How are you?
Ms. LAURIE DAVID (Author, "The Family Dinner"):
So great to be here.
LAUER:
How do you go from "
An Inconvenient Truth
" and environmental activism to the family
dinner
table?
Ms. DAVID:
Uh-huh. Well, the family environment, right? And honestly, the truth is every issue I care about crosses the
dinner plate
, including raising healthy kids and having a green kitchen. So it all makes sense.
LAUER:
You feel it's very important for families to get together. This should be a ritual.
Ms. DAVID:
Yes.
LAUER:
This should be a tradition.
Ms. DAVID:
Yeah.
LAUER:
Is this based on something that you experienced in your own childhood, or what you're trying to do with your own kids?
Ms. DAVID:
Well, both. OK, my childhood dinners were not so great.
LAUER:
Right.
Ms. DAVID:
Although we sat down every night, it was always about who was going to leave the table crying first.
And I
wanted to make sure I didn't want to repeat that as an adult.
LAUER:
Right. So what do you do with your -- you have teenaged daughters, right?
Ms. DAVID:
I have two teenaged daughters. And here's the thing. I've been doing this for over a decade. I've insisted on the ritual of family
dinner
, and I am now reaping the benefits because my kids are teenagers and, guess what, they're still at the table and we're talking and laughing, and I'm so grateful that I did it.
LAUER:
And you -- and you recognize that a lot of parents have struggles just to find the time...
Ms. DAVID:
Yes. Yep.
LAUER:
...just to put food on the table.
Ms. DAVID:
Yes.
LAUER:
But you want parents to look at this as not just a meal. This is an important opportunity to talk about things with your kids. How free-form? Or do you actually have a structure to it?
Ms. DAVID:
OK, here's the thing. This is a gift every day gives us. And with everything that's tearing apart the
family life
, including all the screens and the technology, like, we have to grab the rituals, the things that our parents and grandparents knew worked. This is how they raised kids, this is how you civilize children. So here's the thing. Parents who are overwhelmed, and there's a lot of them...
LAUER:
Right.
Ms. DAVID:
...you know, you -- change your mind about what
dinner
is. It doesn't have to be three courses and an apple pie in the oven. It can be
peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches. The key to
dinner
really is sitting down and talking.
LAUER:
And when you -- and when you talk with your kids, some families, you know, say things like, 'OK, we're going to play roses and thorns.'
Ms. DAVID:
Right.
LAUER:
'We're going to talk about the best thing you -- that happened to you today, the worst thing.'
Ms. DAVID:
Highs and lows.
LAUER:
Right. Some people talk about politics, they have a
word of the day
.
Ms. DAVID:
Right. Right.
LAUER:
Do you like that structure, or do you like it to be more spontaneous?
Ms. DAVID:
Here's the thing. I think people need help having conversation at
dinner
.
LAUER:
Mm-hmm.
Ms. DAVID:
I think that -- you know, I heard from a lot of people that I interviewed for the book where they said, 'Well, we ate
dinner
at every night, but nobody talked.' And that's -- you know, sometimes talking can be just as challenging as preparing the food.
LAUER:
Which I like because what you've got, you've got this centerpiece over here, and you put things in the centerpiece that spur conversation.
Ms. DAVID:
Uh-huh. OK, this is a great idea if you have little kids, and it's called the treasure bowl. So put the bowl in the center of your table, OK, and all week long your kids get to pull things out of their pockets, things that they find outside, things that are special to them around the house, and they get to put them in the bowl every night. And then at the end of the week you go around the table and they get to pull out what's special to them and they get to say why.
LAUER:
It's like show and tell a little bit. Yeah.
Ms. DAVID:
It's like kind of show and tell at your
dinner
table.
LAUER:
You also like the idea that kids help in the preparation of the meal.
Ms. DAVID:
Yes.
LAUER:
And so you got to come up with meal ideas that they can help assemble.
Ms. DAVID:
OK, this book is filled with great ideas like this, and I'm totally excited about this. First of all, you can buy one thing for your table, get a
lazy Susan
because this will make every meal more fun. I mean, you're going to have a
lazy Susan
abuser and, you know, going to spin it too much, but...
LAUER:
Also, if you sit the kid on this, then you can spin them around, they can talk to everybody at the table.
Ms. DAVID:
But honestly, this makes every meal more fun. So here's -- this is a perfect example of a participation meal, which is that everybody gets to get involved in preparing the dish at the table, and that gets everybody loosened up and
having fun
. And they get to personalize the meal. So this is -- this is Thai chicken wraps. You get to take your lettuce leaf and put all your toppings on it, your sauce. You get to make it
the way you like it
. And if kids are involved in making the food, they're going to eat more.
LAUER:
And by the way, just because only have a few seconds left...
Ms. DAVID:
OK.
LAUER:
...if you don't have time to do a full
dinner
every night...
Ms. DAVID:
Right.
LAUER:
...you're -- you encourage people, try
snack time
.
Ms. DAVID:
And that's the other thing. If you can't do ritual
dinner
, do ritual lunch. Do a Sunday afternoon. Do
tea time
before bedtime. Have that be your ritual. And if you do it every night, your kid are going to love it.
LAUER:
Laurie David
. We went to college together, folks, college together at
Ohio University
.
Ms. DAVID:
We did. We did.
LAUER:
Nice to see you again, it really is.
