BRING IT TO THE TABLE STUDY SHOWS FAMILY DINNERS HELP KEEP KIDS OUT OF TROUBLE

The Hardys Of Spotsylvania County Have Homemade Meals Together Every
Night. A Report Says The More A Family Eats Together, The Less Likely
Children Are To Abuse Drugs.

Around the Hardy house, people get excited when "Stinky Bread" is on the menu.

It's one of the specialties of Mary Hardy, an Iowa farm girl and
Spotsylvania County teacher who's also the chief cook and mom of this family.

Mary trims away the crust from Italian bread, then cuts the loaf into
slices--but not all the way through. She stuffs mozzarella cheese
between each slice, then smears the loaf with a mixture of three
pressed garlic cloves and a stick of softened butter.

She sprinkles the bread with Italian seasoning and pops it in the oven.

And, boy, does it let out a stink as it bakes, almost enough to make
your eyes water.

But when it's served, with salad and "Margaret's Chicken," a recipe
also laden with butter and cheese, eyes aren't what's watering.

Mouths are.

The Hardys love the recipes that have been passed down from
relatives, like the chicken dish from one of Mary's four older
sisters. They also enjoy the new ones she finds, like "Stinky Bread,"
which came out of a cookbook Mary bought at an airport.

Mealtime for Mary and her family has always been special, as much
from the heart as her main dishes are from scratch.

She grew up on a farm, in a Catholic family, and was the youngest of
11 children.

There aren't nearly that many around her table. She and her husband,
Greg, who teaches technology education at Luther Jackson Middle
School in Fairfax County, have two kids.

Derek, 11, goes to Ni River Middle School where Mary teaches
sixth-grade math, and Chantel, 8, is a third-grader at Wilderness
Elementary School.

But the meals are just as vital to Mary and Greg as they were to
their parents and siblings.

That's why the Hardys sit down to home-cooked meals, between 6 and
6:30 p.m., practically every night.

They might have a hearty casserole or quesadillas, soft tacos or
chicken soup with homemade noodles. One of them says grace--on this
night, Greg blesses "the hands that made this food"--then the members
pass around the plates, just as Mary's family did back in Iowa.

"My husband calls me a dying breed," said Mary, who's 41. "I think
it's just family tradition."

But there's more to family meals than what's on the menu, according
to a recent study.

How often a family eats together is a powerful indicator of whether a
child is likely to smoke, drink or use drugs, reports the National
Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University in New
York City.

The more often families have dinner together, the less likely their
kids are to abuse drugs--and the more likely they are to have good
grades, according to the annual back-to-school survey.

The report compared teens who have five or more family dinners
together a week with those who had two or less.

Those with fewer family dinners are:

Three times more likely to try marijuana.

Two and half times more likely to smoke cigarettes.

More than one and a half times more likely to drink alcohol.

Those who don't sit down to dinner with their families also are more
likely to have friends who use drugs, ranging from Ecstasy or acid to
heroin or cocaine, according to the report.

Teens who have family dinners seven nights a week are almost 40
percent more likely to say they get As and Bs, compared to teens who
have dinner with their families two nights a week or less, said the report.

None of the findings surprised Debra McPhee, a substance abuse
therapist with the Rappahannock Area Community Services Board.

"Certainly, there is a connection," she said. "That meal time is invaluable."

Eating is a family activity, as well as a time for everyone to take a
breather and talk about what happened that day, McPhee said.

The family dinner table is also a good place for parents to notice
any problems their children might be having.

Deb Johnson, president of the Stafford County Middle School PTO,
mentioned the survey to her daughters.

Her 15-year-old, Anna, agreed with the results.

"She said, 'The closer you are to your parents, the less you're going
to do it [abuse drugs],'" Johnson said.

Her daughter also said she couldn't sit at the table with her parents
one night and use drugs the next day.

"You'd feel like you were betraying them, you'd feel ashamed," Anna
told her mother.

The PTO president agreed with the drug counselor, that family dinners
are a good time to listen to children about what's going on in their lives.

During counseling sessions, teens often say that, more than anything
else, they want their parents to talk to them.

"They really do," McPhee said.

Meanwhile, parents tell the counselor about their hectic schedules
and all the time they spend taking their children from one activity to another.

"So they're saying, 'Yes, I did spend time with them,' but then they
tell you all the things they did for the child and not with the
child," McPhee said.

Around the Hardy dinner table, there's lots of talk about school
activities. The parents, especially, tend to refer to each other as
"Mother" and "Dad," "Brother" and "Sis."

So, on the night the smell of garlic-filled "Stinky Bread" fills the
Hardy home, Mother asks Dad about his in-service that day. Dad asks
Brother if the older kids are still picking on the younger runners at school.

Dad asks Sister about soccer practice, and Mother wants to know if
Sis had her school pictures taken that day.

That prompts Dad to ask Brother if he's had his done. And about his
sale of magazines for a school fundraiser, how's that going?

The Hardys have a schedule as hectic as most families', with Greg
leaving at 4:30 in the morning to get to Fairfax. The parents share
household chores, but Mary does most of the cooking "probably because
I enjoy doing it--and we want to be able to eat it," she joked.

Greg's good at making grits on Saturday mornings, when the Hardys
have big breakfasts. But the only dinner meal he can fix is "Beanie
Weenies," the combination of beans and franks.

So Mary makes out her menu at least two weeks at a time and carries
it with her to the store. She budgets about $500 a month for
groceries, and the whole family usually goes shopping together.

Everybody's got their favorite meals, which are regularly included in
the menu. Chantel prefers meatballs and pesto, and Derek likes a
sausage and rice casserole called "Fire and Ice."

Dad's favorite is one of those handed down from Mary's mother, called
"Fern's Chicken." The meat is fried and then baked, "so it falls off
the bone," he said. When it's served with all the trimmings,
including mashed potatoes and homemade gravy, Greg says it's a wonderful meal.

Almost as tasty as "Stinky Bread."