A friend of ours recently moved to a different house. The floorplan is completely different from their old home, so of course they have to figure out where to put their furniture and how each space will be used. In their former house, their dining room table was used both for eating and homeschooling and it made me think.
Do you have that kind of table? At our house, we have used the dining room table for homeschooling and we've had dedicated homeschool rooms before. There are good and bad things about either setup. I loved it when we had a dedicated homeschool room because we didn't have to clean the table off before every meal. We could also close the door when company came over, but that's another issue.
I encouraged my friend to have a separate table just for homeschooling if at all possible. I know it's not always possible. We currently work in the dining room at our house. But here's my why: Don't do anything that could interfere with your family having dinner together.
When families use the dining room table for other things, whether it be homeschooling, sewing, working from home, or whatever, it's very easy to say, "Oh let's not bother cleaning that off. We'll just eat in the living room tonight." There's nothing wrong with that sometimes. We've certainly had to do that on occasion. But families eating together is too important to ignore. If you CAN work somewhere else, DO. Or at least have a plan for how to easily clean off the mess for mealtime.
When I taught in public school, I sometimes had to eat lunch with my class. It was kind of horrifying. The lack of manners in an elementary school cafeteria is appalling. I could tell you exactly which families regularly ate dinner at the table together, and which kids ate in front of the TV in a heartbeat. There are so many important things that happen around the table in a family.
Manners are taught at the table. They are modeled by the adults. Learning to pass the food around the table (and in what direction), saying, "no, thank you" to the food you'd rather not eat, chewing with your mouth closed, not talking with food in your mouth, the use of a napkin, how to excuse yourself from the table, what topics are appropriate during meals, and so much more are all learned throughout childhood. There's more too! Pushing your chair in, scraping your plate and putting it in the sink, thanking the cook, and so much more can translate to your child being a good guest in others' homes.
My husband had a great-aunt who never had children of her own. She was well-off and always took the nieces and nephews out to fancy restaurants and taught them etiquette. My husband always knew which fork to use and how to signal he was finished eating whenever we found ourselves in fancier places. I was lost. Maybe your child won't leave your house knowing how to dine with a king or queen, but they should know the basics of polite table manners.
And that is learned, you guessed it, around the dinner table.
So whether you homeschool and dine on the same piece of furniture or not, please take time to clean those books off the table and eat together as a family.
Next up: Other benefits of family dinners!
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