Family dinners don’t happen very often in many homes for reasons like working late, after-school activities, varied schedules, or being a single parent doing it all. The list goes on and on and the result could be choosing something quick and easy while not always being healthy or eating at separate times in different places.

Complicated lives can be challenging for families to get together and enjoy quality time, but time spent together can have enormous benefits for everyone’s well-being. Here are some helpful ways to make family mealtime easier:

Anyone can think of life events that would make you sad or frustrated, take away your energy, and even make you question the meaning of your life. We don’t want to call every passing low mood depression because we’d be making an illness out of what might be a normal way of feeling under bad conditions. Not every sad or mad feeling is depression that needs to be checked out by a doctor or therapist, but that may be a possibility. How can we tell the difference?

Here are some general questions to ask yourself when you’re trying to understand certain feelings: