Hide the Vegetables Under the Mashed Potatoes

I was the baby of the family, significantly younger than my siblings. In fact my sister Robin, who is twelve years older than me, went off to college the same week I started first grade. This age differance obviously affected our family dinners. I was down at the end ofthe table playing with my food, trying to hide the broccoli under the mashed potatoes (because no self- respecting six year-old eats anything green) while the rest of my family was focused on adult interaction.

Every family has its own dinner rituals. And your childhood rituals affect your adult interactions. Nonverbal research indicates that where you sat and who you talked to at the family dinner table created a pattern of conversational behavior that can affect your entire adult life. Yes, think right now of where you sat for family dinners as a child, and think about where you sit at meetings and about your comfort level talking to co-workers and lunch and dinner companions. After reading this article you can even try to imagine where Obama and McCain sat growing up!

As the baby of the family I loved attention. At dinner I would interrupt the conversational flow with exploits of the number of minnows in my latest creek catch and how super high I swung on the swing that day. I always had to fight my way into the conversation, using an extra loud animated voice. I had more energy and enthusiasm than a high school cheerleader and more funny facial expressions and gestures than the “Last Comic Standing.” I would even sit on my feet, thinking it was just a few inches of height that separated me from the big people fun.

My antics would work in the short term. I could always get the first part of the story out. But if I went a second to long or wasn’t funny, the adults would shush me and continue on, and I would be the small, silent food magician, with my abracadabra broccoli disappearing under the potatoes again. I was ignored. Now that I think about it, I may have had my first tough audience as a five year-old. Occasionally, my enthusiasm and disruptions would so disturb the adults that I would be allowed to eat in the basement family room in front of the TV. I could hear the family laughing upstairs over the sounds of my Flintstone cartoons. It was lonely downstairs. I felt left out.

Now here is the kicker. Years later, as I began to attend grad student meetings, then faculty meetings and then corporate meetings, sitting around any boardroom table I felt like the little kid at the end being ignored. I even sat on my feet! And like the shushed child, I was silent most of the time. It took two years of speaking in front of large corporate and association audiencesto get my confidence up enough to speak up while sitting in a board room or dinner party! Yesterday I went to a business meeting at a restaurant. The booth seat was low, so I asked for a telephone book to sit on. I guess I am too old to sit on my feet. Oh, the patterns created at the family dinner table are very strong.

Where did you sit at the table? Take out a piece of paper and draw, ideally with crayons, where you sat at the family dinner table and who you talked to the most. Use red lines to signify conflict filled conversations, perhaps with your pesky brother, and green lines for easy fun conversations. Now draw where you sit at the table and the current conversation flow at home and at work. Check out my web site and blog for more articles on conversation and look at the chapter in my book Success Signals for a longer exercise. Let me know if you have any table sitting insights. In the meantime, may you have all the mashed potatoes you need.