Home for Dinner

Kids need more than food. They're starving for family dinners.

Dinnertime has become a rare luxury among today's busy families. Yet study after study shows that no other hour in your children's day will deliver as many emotional and psychological benefits as the one spent sharing food and conversation, unwinding, and connecting. Increased resiliency and self-esteem, higher academic achievement, a healthier relationship to food -- these and other positive outcomes have been linked to the simple act of eating dinner together.

Make it happen for your family with Harvard psychologist Anne Fishel's impassioned by practical can-do primer for prioritizing mealtime. Dinner become doable with the tips, recipes, and heaps of inspiration packed into this one-stop family-happiness booster. Learn how to:

• Overcome time-constraints, scheduling issues, and post-work fatigue
• Put delicious food on the table with quick, healthy recipes
• Get everyone to pitch in, even the littlest cooks
• Bring gratitude to the table, and avert complaints and conflict
• Satisfy varied taste buds, from picky toddlers to meat-denouncing teens
• Get your family talking, laughing, and engaging with one another
• Keep it up -- with minimal hassle, and a lifetime of rewards