Family Dinner Benefits Include Prevention of Drug Abuse

Family Fact of the Week: Family Meals Benefit Teens

Dinner Topics for Thursday

Dear Epicworld readers,

I've been telling my readers  this for nearly 10 years! ~C.D.

Christine Kim

Heritage Foundation

Summertime often means more family time, and that’s good news. Research consistently shows a strong association between spending time as a family and adolescent well-being. In particular, frequent family meals have been linked to a host of positive teen outcomes, including physical and psychological health, school performance, and reduced risk of substance abuse and delinquency.

The latest study on family meals, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, suggests the link is quite strong. Using a large, nationally representative survey that tracked nearly 18,000 adolescents over seven years, the study finds that family meals are associated with reduced depressive symptoms, lower risk of substance use, and fewer delinquent acts.

Family structure, family size, mother’s employment status, family relationship quality and conflict, family activities, and parental control—factors that are linked to both family meals and the three teen outcomes—partially account for the associations. Nonetheless, additional analysis suggests that increasing the frequency of family meals may directly lead to a reduction in teens’ depressive symptoms. That is, family meals appear to provide a unique opportunity for parents and their teens to connect in ways that promote the latter’s psychological well-being. It is also important to note that family meals are closely related other aspects of the family environment; they do not occur in a vacuum.

The study also builds on the evidence that family forms matter. Intact families tend to eat together more frequently, and, on average, teens in those families exhibit fewer depressive symptoms, have lower risk of substance use, and commit fewer delinquent acts.

Research shows that the intact family correlates with quality family time and other positive family functioning and dynamics in ways that can bolster outcomes for children and teens. Thus, strengthening the traditional family should be a key component in policies and programs seeking to promote children’s well-being.

Prevention of Sin: A Fable

Dinner Topics for Friday

On preventing sin, rather than being faced with the much more difficult task of curing it.

We may be bucking a strong tide, but we must teach our children that sin is sin.
 

“Put on the whole armour of God,” as Paul admonished [Ephesians 6:11]. With this divine influence and protection, we may be able to discern the adversary’s deceptions in whatever appealing words and rationalizations and we may be “able to withstand the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” [See Ephesians 6:13.]14

We must not yield to even the smallest temptations.

Serious sin enters into our lives as we yield first to little temptations. Seldom does one enter into deeper transgression without first yielding to lesser ones, which open the door to the greater. Giving an example of one type of sin, someone said, “An honest man doesn’t suddenly become dishonest any more than a clean field suddenly becomes weedy.”

It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the devil to enter a door that is closed. He seems to have no keys for locked doors. But if a door is slightly ajar, he gets his toe in, and soon this is followed by his foot, then by his leg and his body and his head, and finally he is in all the way.

This situation is reminiscent of the fable of the camel and his owner who were traveling across the desert sand dunes when a wind storm came up. The traveler quickly set up his tent and moved in, closing the flaps to protect himself from the cutting, grinding sands of the raging storm. The camel was of course left outside, and as the violent wind hurled the sand against his body and into his eyes and nostrils he found it unbearable and finally begged for entrance into the tent.

“There is room only for myself,” said the traveler.

“But may I just get my nose in so I can breathe air not filled with sand?” asked the camel.

“Well, perhaps you could do that,” replied the traveler, and he opened the flap ever so little and the long nose of the camel entered. How comfortable the camel was now! But soon the camel became weary of the smarting sand on his eyes and ears . . .

“The wind-driven sand is like a rasp on my head. Could I put just my head in?”

Again, the traveler rationalized that to acquiesce would do him no damage, for the camel’s head could occupy the space at the top of the tent which he himself was not using. So the camel put his head inside and the beast was satisfied again—but for a short while only.

“Just the front quarters,” he begged, and again the traveler relented and soon the camel’s front shoulders and legs were in the tent. Finally, by the same processes of pleading and of yielding, the camel’s torso, his hind quarters and all were in the tent. But now it was too crowded for the two, and the camel kicked the traveler out into the wind and storm.

Like the camel, Lucifer readily becomes the master when one succumbs to his initial blandishments. Soon then the conscience is stilled completely, the evil power has full sway, and the door to salvation is closed until a thorough repentance opens it again.

The importance of not accommodating temptation in the least degree is underlined by the Savior’s example. Did not he recognize the danger when he was on the mountain with his fallen brother, Lucifer, being sorely tempted by that master tempter? He could have opened the door and flirted with danger by saying, “All right, Satan, I’ll listen to your proposition. I need not succumb, I need not yield, I need not accept—but I’ll listen.”

Christ did not so rationalize. He positively and promptly closed the discussion, and commanded: “Get thee hence, Satan,” meaning, likely, “Get out of my sight—get out of my presence—I will not listen—I will have nothing to do with you.” Then, we read, “the devil leaveth him.” [Matthew 4:10–11.]

This is our proper pattern, if we would prevent sin rather than be faced with the much more difficult task of curing it.


As I study the story of the Redeemer and his temptations, I am certain he spent his energies fortifying himself against temptation rather than battling with it to conquer it.

Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball,  (2006), 102–13