I know this might be a bit late to do any sort of planning for your chapter to do this project on Monday, September 28, 2009, but you can still use the ideas from Family Day - A Day to Eat Dinner with your Children in your home. (Teens, just re-word to say "with your parents" and it's all good...) This blurb from the Family Day website sums most of it up:
Dinner Makes a Difference!
More than a decade of research by The National Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse at Columbia University has consistently found that the more
often kids eat dinner with their families, the less likely they are to smoke,
drink or use drugs.
Family Day – A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children is a national
movement launched by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at
Columbia University in 2001 that promotes the parental engagement fostered
during frequent family dinners as a simple, effective way to prevent substance
abuse in kids.
To learn more about Family Day and to join parents all across America
in taking the Family Day STAR pledge, log on to http://www.casafamilyday.org/.
Family and consumer sciences teachers will also be interested in downloading the 17-page report "Importance of Family Dinners V" which links the "frequency of family dinners and teens’ substance use, their access to substances, their relationship with their parents, and the signals they receive from their parents about substance use. We also took a closer look at the quality of dinners teens are having with their parents, and the impact of distractions such as cell phones, Blackberries and other electronic devices at the table."
And if you missed (like me) planning for this year's national event, there's nothing to stop your local FCCLA chapter from still planning a similar event to take place during FCCLA week or during National Family Week in November. It would be a great Families First project, too.