
If you’ve been reading this blog for long, you know that growing a connected family is our most important value. We want to truly know our kids—every version of them—and walk together through each stage of life.
But how does a connected family actually happen? It’s not one dramatic breakthrough or grand gesture. It’s built in the small, ordinary moments where we choose to slow down as a family. These choices are downpayments on a priceless treasure.
The Spanish have a tradition called Sobremesa. In English, it translates to “about/upon the table.” Cocina describes it like this:
“When you get together with friends or family for a meal in Latin America, the experience is not just limited to the meal itself. Sobremesa is the time you spend in deep, meaningful conversation, relaxing together, sometimes for hours, well after dessert has been served.”
In short, our family dining table holds much more than just the meal.
Wether we have hangry littles or ravenous teens, meals are a natural pause in everyone’s day. Sobremesa transforms the simple act of feeding ourselves into a sacred opportunity to feed something deeper—connection, belonging.
How many of us grew up lonely—right in the middle of our own family?
I know I did.
Life has a way of keeping parents too busy and distracted from our most important role. It’s our God-given joy and responsibility to shepard this family wholeheartedly.
And when we neglect it, every member feels the loss.
Sadness. Loneliness. Disconnection.
It’s like leaving a rare vintage sports car to rust in an abandoned field.
Everyone who passes by is shocked by the waste.
They wonder: How could something so valuable be left to decay?
A Sociologist Walks Into an Afterschool Club…
I work on a team that teaches global awareness in public schools, and one of my favorite topics to share in culture club is Spain—especially the tradition of sobremesa. I love introducing students to this beautiful custom of lingering at the table, enjoying conversation and connection. My background is in Sociology (the study of how society functions). I’m always curious about how our everyday habits shape our relationships.
So, I ask the students to take a quick, informal survey: Where and with whom do you eat dinner?
Then I challenge them to try sobremesa with their families, or even un paseo—the Spanish post-dinner stroll.
Their answers often surprise me.
Some are delightful.
Some break my heart.
The only child who eats dinner alone at the kitchen bar.
The girl who eats in her room with just her sister.
The one whose parents only sit with him if it’s meatloaf.
The boy whose family always eats in front of the TV.
If I could speak to these kids’ parents, to all parents including myself, I would say this: Kids grow up in a blip.
The chance to know every small version of them is a massive privilege crammed into a tight window of time. But if we seize it with our whole hearts, our kids will keep offering us front-row seats to their lives. If we share not just a house but an actual life together now, we set the stage for a lasting connection later.
I am telling you from experience, this works! Addison and Adrienne are 16 and 20. We have some years behind us, and so many ahead. But these choices we made early on? They are paying off big time!
Teens have their own schedules. They begin to move at a pace that feels separate from ours. But because we made family connection a priority, it now ingrained in them too. They crave it as much as we do. They protect it. They set their routines around it.
Clear the Table, Make the Time
Listen, at the end of the day (literally!) we all have to eat. I’m not even saying it has to be a home-cooked meal. That is a subject for another author. I’m just pleading the case to clear the table, silence the to-do list, and be together.
Eat dinner as a family.
Ask about their day.
Listen to them ramble.
Get to know this ever-changing, ever-blooming person you’ve been entrusted with.
“You talk, drink, debate, laugh, and fully enjoy each other’s company. You… sobremesa.”
Because not only will it fill up their soul with connections and belonging they crave, it’s the sweetest lift for your own heavy load.
Everything we do is for our kids..
The reward?
Being invited into the front row of their lives.
Don’t miss the show!
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