Good Family Dinner Table Conversation Starters
As the new year gets underway, it’s a good time to start new family habits or reinforce good ones that you’re already doing. At our dinner table, it can sometimes help to have some tricks up our sleeve to facilitate easy conversations and bonding with our child. A recent article by Casey Seidenberg has some good additional ideas—some highlighted below—to add to your go-to list!
In her words, “Parenting books tell me to develop a tight bond with my children now so it will withstand the teen years and beyond. So that is exactly what I am trying to do. If it takes some silly games and artificial dinnertime activities, I am okay with it.”
Getting-to-know-you games:
- Pet peeves and idiosyncrasies
- What I know about you
- I remember when . . .
- Would you rather . . .
Conversation-Starter Questions:
- Name some things you take for granted.
- What is the grossest thing you have ever eaten?
- What are you more courageous about today than you were two years ago?
- What will be obsolete in the future?
Other Ideas:
- Moral conversations like “You get a good look at a woman with a young child stealing baby food from a grocery store. The police ask you for a description. Do you provide it?”
- Poetry cafe: One person brings a poem and reads it. That person talks about why he or she chose that poem and then we discuss whatever comes to mind. We started with Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise,” and the conversations spanned a week and covered everything from modern slavery to the root of confidence.