Anxiety

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"I wouldn't confuse that with lack of confidence." Print This ArticleE-Mail This ArticleRSS Feed Post a Comment Comments: You must be a registered user of washingtonpost.com to post comments.The Fine Print: WPNI Rules for Posting Content About The PostThe Washington Post Company: Information and Other Post Co.

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...ba href=/anxiety/a/b that family life is slipping away from us." •Family rituals.

Whatever form the family may take, experts say rituals make a big difference in fostering family identity.

Research shows that some rituals are key to a person's emotional health and even to their academic achievement.

The family dinner, for example, is much more than a bite to eat.

Fiese says studies show 70% of families with children under 18 eat together at night four times a week, even though the meal itself typically lasts just under 20 minutes.

Alicia Kinder, 32, of Syracuse is a special-events director who is married and the mother of two daughters, ages 7 and 19 months.

"I was raised on the idea that family dinner is very important as the one time of day I could count on everybody being together," she says.

The type of food doesn't seem to make a difference, Fiese says, but the quality of the encounter certainly does.

"If you've got that face-to-face time and the conversation time, those are essential ingredients," she says.

"If you're eating at home and have four television sets going at the same time, it's not healthy." New findings by Emory University professors Robyn Fivush and Marshall Duke support that notion.

"It's not about dinner but the kind of conversations you have with your family and the stories you tell," Fivush says.

Their research suggests that parents who share stories about their pasts and ancestors produce adolescents with higher self-esteem and self-confidence.

•F...