One of the greatest blessing of life is to be born and raised in a family all things been equal. Family is the basic unit of a society and the nation at large as each one of us are born into a family whether nuclear or extended in nature/setting. The family ties or bond is crucial as we all knit together and feel loved/accepted in our individual families. The family ties is strengthened by having family hangout, excursion, discussion moments, visiting moments and most especially eating moments.
It is good to know that all these varies from one family to another with each family having their own peculiarities as no two families are the same. However, in the general view, one or two of the above methods of strengthening family ties is applicable. For me while growing up, the family dinner time is a major way of strengthening the family bond as we all eat together at the same time, same place and eating the same food. I was raised in a family we all eat the same thing with countable few times of exception in rare cases. Such moment are a great one as we share/relieve moments together or enjoying a television show together aswell.
As a married man, this is still the norm in my family even though my wife for some reasons had a slight different background as they eat different meals during the dinner. Now that she is married, we eat the same food, same place and at the same time. We do this discussing, watching an interesting program or listening to something together as all these helps and strengthen our family bond. The family dinner been taken in such a way helps to easily detect if something is wrong like not yet resolved dispute, not feeling well or something similar.
Also, on few occasions we have observed family dinner as an hangout with other couples which is something we like and we do look forward to as couple or family dinner or eat out also helps in maintaining family ties. I would like to say that there is no "hard and fast rule" to this as it depends on each family but it is something worthwhile and should be encouraged in families. During such relaxed moments, this is when we got to talk and have a heart-to-heart discussion as couples and as parents-children. Also, as the dinner is more effective than the breakfast except in few times of holidays as many will be rushing down to work, so the luxury of time may not be there.
Therefore, family dinner time is a good moment of strengthening family bond/ties either as couples or as parents to children. The most important thing is to be creative with it and not stereotyped and it's not necessarily can be an in-house thing, sometimes it can be done outside the home like family eating out in a good restaurant and so on. Thank you for reading and comments/contributions are welcomed.
This is my entry to @Hivelearners weekly featured contents, week 141 edition 01 on "FAMILY DINNER" 
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