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Thursday, July 4, 2024

Basketball: Dinner Table Conversations

My wife tells me that families who eat dinner together regularly enjoy more harmony. Once again, she's right...and more. Basketball families sometimes get cheated out of family meals. 

From Brave AI: What is the value of families eating dinner together?

Eating dinner together as a family has numerous benefits for both children and parents. Some of the values of families eating dinner together include:

  • Improved Communication: Sharing a meal together allows family members to interact and communicate with each other, promoting stronger relationships and bonding.
  • Better Nutrition: Eating together tends to promote more sensible eating habits, which can lead to better nutrition and weight management.
  • Stress Reduction: Family meals can help reduce stress and promote a sense of calm, as shared experiences and conversations can help alleviate daily worries.
  • Academic Performance: Research suggests that children who have regular family dinners have better grades, better vocabularies, and better behavior.
  • Healthier Habits: Family meals can help children develop healthier habits, such as eating a balanced diet, reducing the risk of substance misuse, and practicing good hygiene.
  • Increased Self-Esteem: Sharing meals together can boost children’s self-esteem, as they feel valued and included in family activities.
  • Therapeutic Insights: Family dinners can provide valuable insights for therapists, helping them understand family dynamics and develop more effective treatment plans.
  • Less Stress: A 2022 survey by the American Heart Association found that 91% of parents reported that their families were significantly less stressed when they ate meals together regularly.

Family dinners in our childhood often had a 'quiz show' quality. What did you learn in school today? Did you see "this or that" in the news?

Sara Blakely's father asked the children weekly, "what have you failed at this week?" They became less risk averse, capable of asking how to do better. Blakely leveraged risk into becoming a billionaire as Spanx founder and CEO.  

There wasn't any Google. We heard, "look it up." That meant the library, a vast storehouse of knowledge. That inspires intellectual humility and curiosity, the subject of this piece.

Excerpt: "What are the hallmarks of learning cultures? They value intellectual humility and curiosity. They put understanding above getting a top grade, feeling comfortable, or looking smart. 

In the research study, teachers who created learning cultures were more likely to have students who, at the end of the school year, could admit what they didn’t know—they grew in intellectual humility. And the effects lasted beyond that year and into the next. This means that learning cultures didn’t just change students in the moment—they changed them in the long run."

Dinner table conversations taught us to ask why? Metacognition... thinking about thinking...ask 'why?'. When a player struggles to learn, can we simplify, teach better, or find out if they have a learning disability...ADD or dyslexia? We've all had both. 

Dinner table talk shared a learning culture and a mandate for curiosity. When basketball problems arose, it was natural to put the program under the microscope without shame or blame. Easy answers might have been more minutes for the best players, not always acceptable in the developmental setting where parents pay for programs. 

What wasn't okay was applying pressure to children to get higher grades or score more points. "Do your best" was the best advice. 

Lagniappe. The why.  

Lagniappe 2. Sometimes the advice should be, "try easier. Slow down."  

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