Why can't we just have a nice family dinner?

What's so hard about that?

Have you or your partner ever wondered that maybe to yourselves, maybe allowed?

This is a question I get all the time, and today I'm going to tackle it.

Why can family dinners be such a struggle and some strategies to make it a little bit easier

and find a rhythm that works for you?

Hi, this is Dene. I'm the founder of Simple Families.

Simple Families is an online community for parents who are seeking a simpler, more intentional life.

In this show, we focus on minimalism with kids, positive parenting, family wellness,

and decreasing the mental load. My perspectives are based in my first-hand experience raising

kids, but also rooted in my PhD in child development. So you're going to hear conversations that are

based in research, but more importantly, real life. Thanks for joining us.

Hi there, Dene here. Thanks for tuning in. I am excited to take on this somewhat lofty topic

of family dinners today. It's a question I get all the time from parents.

Why does it feel so stressful to get everyone together around the dinner table to share a meal

together? A time that's supposed to be something, quote-unquote, all families do together.

Something that many of us feel like should just be a given. Before we get into that,

here's a one minute word from today's sponsor. The sponsor for today is PrepDish.

PrepDish has made my life so much easier when it comes to feeding my family.

An easy and family dinners, as we're going to talk about today, are two things that are generally

not synonymous. PrepDish is a meal planning service. There's three steps. You'll get this PDF

in your inbox each week. The first page is the ingredient list. I order my groceries online,

...