Family Style Dining: Making the Most of Your Meals

Social skills--including the ability to participate appropriately in social activities--are predictive of later social and academic success and critical for children to successfully engage in typical early childhood contexts. For children with disabilities, deficits in social skills are not uncommon. To address the relation between social skills and later success, high-quality early childhood settings must intentionally include instruction focused specifically on social skills. Mealtime is a ubiquitous routine in early childhood contexts that might be ideal for teaching social skills. Family style dining (FSD) can be used to support social skills instruction during mealtime. The purpose of this article is to describe the FSD practice and strategies for teaching social skills during mealtimes using FSD. The authors describe FSD, outline the specific components, and describe how to implement in early childhood classrooms.