It is not always easy to eat dinner together as a family. Research from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) has found that when they asked teens and parents why they did not eat dinner more often together, the two groups of people blamed each other.

The number one response for teens? Parents were either at work or had a late work shift.

The number one response for parents? Everybody is busy and has different activities.

Research studies, however, continue to highlight the power of family dinners. Now a new study ¹ from CASA at Columbia University has been released, and it says that teenagers who do not eat dinner frequently with their family are:

• Twice as likely to use tobacco
• Almost twice as likely to use alcohol
• More likely to use marijuana

The same is true with grades in school:

• Teenagers who have five to seven family dinners per week are more likely to get As and Bs in school.
• Teenagers who have fewer than three family dinners per week are twice as likely to report receiving mostly Cs and lower grades in school.