Today family members eat fewer meals together. Why is this? Is this a positive or negative trend?

Nowadays,

families

meet around meal tables less and less. The long working

hours

of

parents

are one of the reasons for

this

problem. I believe that

this

trend has harmful effects on the relations of family members. Family members do not choose to eat separately intentionally most of the

time

, as opposed to commonly believed.

Parents

' long and irregular work

hours

cause

families

not to spend

time

eating

meals

together. When a parent works a night shift, it becomes impossible to arrange meal

hours

.

For instance

, a study showed that 55% of British

families

could not meet at the dinner table since one of the

parents

has to work.

On the other hand

, contemporary teenagers resist quitting what they are doing and participating in their family

meals

. Since multiplayer computer games or series have hypnotizing effects on young people, it is hard to persuade them to sit with their

families

.

Moreover

, when the

families

insist on spending

time

together, they raise their shields to cut all communication. To overcome these problems,

families

have to find new ways to attract them to spend

time

together around the table. The most crucial result of not meeting for

meals

is the decrease in family relations. Since

meals

are the most common

time

that

families

spend together, a decline in it results in the weakening of the connection of

families

.

For example

, a study between Turkish

families

showed that

families

who spend more

time

than average on

meals

together have better links between family members than

families

who spend below average.

Parents

should spend more effort meeting around tables to know their children better. In conclusion,

families

should use every opportunity to have strong family ties. The uniting effect of the dinner table should not be underestimated. To end

this

, the governments can

also

force employees to arrange working

hours

for

parents

to create

families

with solid relations.