Celebrate Family Day September 22

Sitting down to dinner with the family every night may seem impossible for busy parents who juggle work, kids, soccer games, homework and other afterschool activities. Yet dining together more often might be enough to keep the kids from experimenting with drugs and alcohol, according to the national Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.

To kick off a family dining tradition in Agoura Hills, Mayor John Edelston encouraged residents t o eat dinner with their families on Family Day, Sept. 22.

Family Day was created by CASA as a national movement to remind parents that "dinner makes a difference."

"Frequent family dinners make a difference," Edelston said at the Sept. 10 City Council meeting. Connecting with children over a family meal curbs substance abuse among children, he said.

The CASA website offers information about the relationship between drug abuse among teens and the decline in family dinners. The grassroots movement to bring families together at the dinner table isn't concerned with the food that's served, Edelston said. Whether its a home-cooked dinner or takout food, togetherness as a family and conversation during the meal are what counts, he said.

In a report, Joseph Califano Jr., chair and president of CASA, says, "The more often kids eat dinner with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, drink or use drugs."

For more than a decade, according to the report, CASA has conducted surveys each year which seek "to identify factors that increase or diminish the likelihood that teens will smoke, drink, use illegal drugs or abuse prescription drugs."

In his report, Califano says that a child who makes it to the age of 21 without smoking, abusing alcohol or using illegal drugs is "virtually certain never to do so." Parents, he said, have the biggest influence on their children, and that influence can be fostered over dinner.

Edelston wants to build on Family Day and hopes local schools will cooperate by easing up on homework at least one night per week to encourage more leisurely family dining.

The CASA website offers tips to make family dinners more rewarding. The "Family Dinner Kit" provides recipes and crafts and offers a list of conversation starters for young children through the teenage years.

For further information, visit www.casafamilyday.org.