Dinner is Ready

Project summary

The uncommunication level between parents and siblings and between teachers and pupils is a major social European problem. DIR aims to increase the communication skills of stressed mothers and teenagers by the teaching of senior volunteers transformed in coaches through the experience of an intangible European cultural heritage: the art of cooking together. Based on Goleman’s theory (1995) emotional intelligence includes knowing and managing personal emotions, sympathizing with others and handling communications in order to be satisfied with them. Almost all studies emphasize on relationship between social skills and family relationships. For instance: In a study done by Jones, and Houts (1992) the results indicated that the effect of parental alcoholism on social skills of the adolescents must be considered in conjunction with specific types of family communication. Also Burke, Woszildo, and Segrin (2013) reached to this result that social skills and psychological problems of parents have an effect on anxiety, loneliness and social skills of their children. In a study done by Arroyo, Nevarez, Segrin, and Harwood (2012), results show that parent and teenagers lacking communication were negatively associated with their own social skills. In addition, teenager’s social skills were significantly associated with perceived family communication. Family communication can be measured by a scale and can be used for various families. The questions of this scale included: communication style, expressing feelings, cooperation, sharing problems with each other, viewing with each other, sincerely answering, perception of feelings’ each other, anger control and genuine expression of emotions. There are some studies as well that have been done on relationship between self-esteem and family communications. For example: Cooper, Holman, and Braithwaite (1983) reached to this result : those children who have little support from their parents, reported lower degree of self-esteem. According to the research of Demo, Small, and Savin-Williams (1987) self- perceptions of family relations, especially self- judgments of communication are important in predicting levels of self-esteem for both adolescents and their parents. Also Andrews and Duncan (1997) found that there is a relationship between self-esteem and family relations with drug abuse in adolescents. DIR partnership believes in the learning value of a European intangible cultural tradition: the art of cooking together, of eating together during the family dinner, of speaking at table without any interference screen. DIR plans to introduce the cooking together learning experience as an important method for enhancing family communication and improving social inclusion and social mobility.