Gather around the table

When I was a young boy of 10-15 years of age, I lived with my grandparents in an old New England farmhouse that didn’t have running water or electricity.
                Can you visualize what it was like every evening after the sun went down and the only noise you heard was the winter wind blowing outside the kitchen door?
                Try this experiment (unannounced) after your family has just finished dinner. Keep them seated around the table, turn off all of the lights in the house except for 1 lamp on the table. Now what? I’m sure that the first time that you do this there will be many questions. ie. Why are the TV and the stereo shut off? Why do we only have one lamp on? Why are we setting around the table? I’m sure that there will be many more questions, but now it is your turn. Ask, what can we do for the next hour?
                It might surprise you when your children react positive to this new found form of attention.
                Now let do something! Do you have any board games or card games to play? Do you want to play hangman or make silhouettes on the wall using the light from the lamp on the table?
                Are you excited yet?  If not, then you missed the point!
                You and your family are sitting around the table, interacting, conversing and maybe sharing a dish of popcorn that the kids help to make. (We had a wire corn popper that we shook over the wood stove).
                You don’t need to go hundreds of miles away on a camping trip to get back to the basics. What you do need to do is get your family seated around the table, without electronic disturbances, and enjoy each other’s ideas and conversation.
                Play simple card or board games for one hour and you will realize that this type of family interaction will bring you much closer than sitting on the couch watching TV. When everyone in the family is doing his/her own thing with the computers or other electronic devices, they all miss out on family get to gathers. By the way, the telephone doesn’t exist during the gather around the table family time.
                Don’t be surprised if your children want to do it again or how much enjoyment that you get from the experience.

article by: Frederick C. Corrigan

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