Jewel Quotes

I don't think there's one thing more important you can do for your kids than have family dinner.

For my kids, I cook everything. We have dinner every night, pretty much, just the four of us: my husband and me and our two kids.

The advantage is I have my family with me all the time. When your daughter takes her first steps or says her first words and your son is going through potty training, I'm not missing any of those things.

Everybody has heard that family dinner is great for kids. But unfortunately, it doesn't work in many of our lives.

My kids know I'm home every night for dinner.

I like to cook. We always sit down together, my daughter and I, and have dinner - baked chicken breast or a piece of fish with green beans, rice or potatoes. And I love pasta.

Having a sit down, no screens, home cooked dinner is one of the most powerful things you can do as a parent and I believe it's the most important activity you can do as a family.

We sit down with the kids every single night, not that I want to every night - sometimes I'd rather be out with my husband having a martini at a swanky restaurant - but we sit down with our kids every night at dinner.

I take parenting incredibly seriously. I want to be there for my kids and help them navigate the world, and develop skills, emotional intelligence, to enjoy life, and I'm lucky to be able to do that and have two healthy, normal boys.

When I'm home, the heart and soul of our family is in the kitchen. Growing up, my parents both worked, so dinnertime was for family - the TV was off. I think it's important to grab that time and really make it special, even after a tough day.

My husband and I have a deal, which has worked out well: He cooks one Sunday, I cook the next. The kids set the table, and we eat in the dining room together, just as I used to do as a kid.

Sitting down to eat in our house is about sharing, you know, talking about the day you've had, be it in school or work or whatever, so that's very important to us.

Family is always first. Even though my kids are older - my son is 25 and my daughter is 21 - I still like to sit down and have dinner with them as much as I can.

We have dinner every single night, Monday through Friday, with our children. We sit down around 6 or 6:30 and it's a family dinner - it's time to check in, just to be around each other.

Lunch is formal - that's when my husband and I have our dates. And dinner is formal: we sit down every day with the kids at seven o' clock.

You know sit with your arm around a little kid and read. It not only teaches them to read but it keeps the family strong.

Go on daddy-daughter dates and father-and-sons' outings with your children. As a family, go on campouts and picnics, to ball games and recitals, to school programs, and so forth. Having Dad there makes all the difference.

My husband has the philosophy that if you can work a Nintendo control, you can chop an onion. So, we have our children in the kitchen. We sit down every night for dinner. We're trying to give our kids a sense of what's going into their bodies, and it's also good for family time.

Too often, tributes to the home-cooked meal assume every family has a schedule that gets everyone home by 5:30 P.M. And too many recipes treat cooking as a solitary pursuit that requires the cook - still most often Mom - to take time away from other family interactions and chores.

I really want to take time and be in the moment with my kid for at least the first year. I know she's not going to remember that, but it's really for the family chemistry.

I think that, being on the road, you've got your family with you, so there's no way that you can have a closer feeling to a group of people that you love than when you sit down and have a dinner or a lunch or a breakfast together.

I cook and I really believe in the family dinner, I think that's a nice time to bring the family together.

If there's any advice I have to give, I would say it's that. If you're looking for a way to get closer to your kids, there ain't no better way than to grab 'em and read. And if you put them in front of a computer or a TV, you are abandoning them. You are abandoning them because they are sitting on a couch or a floor and they may be hugging a dog, but they ain't hugging you.

Studies show that the more often families eat together, the less likely kids are to smoke, drink, do drugs, get depressed, develop eating disorders and consider suicide, and the more likely they are to do well in school, delay having sex, eat their vegetables, learn big words and know which fork to use.

We can't have children growing up feeling unloved - the price is too high for that.