Parents! You have a big impact on your kids. Children spend 52,500 waking hours at home by the time they are 12 years old.  They only spend 3200 hours in school.  How are you spending your hours together? Are you taking advantage of your influence by teaching them healthy habits and building relationships with them?

One powerful way to build relationships with your kids is the simple habit of eating a family meal together. It's incredible the positive results researchers are finding that credit family dinners for so many things from better relationships to happier, healthier, and drug free kids.  A program that we've been a long time supporter of, that really draws attention to these benefits is Family Day - A Day to Eat Dinner with Your ChildrenTM." While we of course love to see families eat together every day, celebrating Sept. 24, 2012 as Family Day, is a great way to renew your commitment to eat together, as well as draw awareness to this healthy habit.

We are getting involved this year to bring you the best ideas for making mealtime possible.  Some great resources that will help you in this celebration can be found here. They include:

• Recipes
• Printable placemats
• and even conversation starting questions.

So, take the challenge this year and make it a goal to eat more dinners together.  Get in the habit now, because once your kids get older, it definitely gets harder!

Then, join us in celebrating September 24, 2012 as a day to remember why you are doing it!

This is our meal plan for this week!! Print it here