Family Dinner Conversation

Best part/worst part of their day
What are they thankful for today
What did you do nice for someone else (fill their bucket) today?
News
What makes President Obama awesome? :)

PS: Good Lord! I think if we need conversation starters on cards, or games at the table, we're in trouble!

We always did the day's "highs" and "lows." I got the idea from a movie I watched once, where the family did that at the dinner table.

What was the best part of your day? What was the worst part of your day?
Or... Read a "story" from "Chicken Soup for the Kid's Soul and discuss it.

News articles! Current events! Of course, on their age level. You can google it for kids - hopefully you have that at your disposal since you homeschool.

That is what the Kennedy family did. Each child was responsible for presenting an interesting current event story at the dinner table. It didn't have to be political of course, but it did need to be interesting. You could let them pick - fun stuff makes dinner conversation so much more interesting than fussing at your sibling for making faces! LOL!

Hope this helps!
Dawn

We always go around the table and everyone shares the best part of their day. You could also make up some questions to keep in a box and pick one for the night - I remember a game like this once, it had things like what was the best present you ever received, who would play you in a movie, etc. or you could pick something from the newspaper and everyone could comment on the story - I know your kids are young, it doesn't have to be something very serious, it could be a story about an animal shelter or a charity race or anything.

"All Stinking Day"? Sounds like Mom needs dinner conversation with DAD. Your boys are young enough to have some time with Dad when he gets home...give them an early dinner, Dad can bath and read a story, let them talk about their day....early bed time for the boys.....Dinner and adult conversation just for you and your husband.

Give it a TRY!

I think there's a "conversation starter" deck of cards you can find at toy stores, especially the specialty stores. You can deal out a card to each person. I'm pretty sure they are age-specific. If not, you can pick through them and make sure an appropriate card goes to each member of the family.

buy one of those board games that have conversation startes, some thing like .. Would you rather have a goat for a pet or a shark?

How about real life heros? Bible heros, cowboy heros, our military people, martyrs or people who have been through terrible stuff and came out of it better than before.How about what makes a hero?

Ask them about something they have learned today. Are you both teaching all subjects? If not, then you can discuss the subjects with the other parent. You can talk about the weather, about comic books, about favorite colors, if they could be anything what would they be? What do they want to eat at Thanksgiving, etc.

My kids like to tell jokes.
BUT the jokes they tell, are ones they make up themselves.
And to be honest, it is totally funny... and their cleverness astounds me.
Then, I write it down... for their memory book. And I date it.
Real neat stuff.
Then Hubby will tell his own clunky sounding jokes. But kid appropriate.

Then we will talk about our day or about world news or just their thoughts about things. Its interesting so hear/see their take on things.

But mostly, conversation at our table is real off the cuff and never silent and can be quite busy verbally.
My kids are 6 and 10.

We always go around the table and ask what was the best part of your day. After everyone answers that then we do what was the worst part of your day. Then we move on into funniest, etc. Who or what made your heart smile today? What were you most thankful for today?

We really try to engage in conversation with each person as they answer each question. We want to know what made it the best part of your day or what made your heart happy today.

It really does make an impact on our daughter. Even if we're out to dinner as soon as the blessing has been said she will randomly choose one of us to start and will say "So Daddy what was the best part of your day?" just to get the ball rolling.

I hope that what we are teaching her is that EVERYBODY has good parts to their day and maybe even some bad parts to their day. It's how you deal with those situations as they occur that matters. Our oldest is only 6 and the youngest is 2. We're striving for an open line of communication with the girls. The 6 year old knows she can tell us absolutely anything, good or bad, and we will listen, support her, brainstorm ideas of what could be done differently, or saddle up and ride into battle to defend her if necessary. She knows Mommy, Daddy, and Sissy will always have her back.

Peace and Blessings,
T. B

Like Dawn said, current events/news stories. I can usually find at least one news story a day in the paper that the kids will find interesting, and I'll read it to them. Even better if it is accompanied by a good picture. We will often talk about the story at dinner. I might ask the boys to tell daddy about the story we read, or just ask them questions about the story.

First, good for you for having family dinners and encouraging conversations!

Be it good or bad or right or wrong, there was no topic off limits at dinner. My DH and I wanted to be able to talk to our kids about anything and have them come to us about everything, so we didn't limit the conversations. Now having said that, it was never really gross or disgusting!

Since you homeschool our 3 standard questions may not work. What did you learn today? What did you have for lunch? And who got in trouble today? OK, we don't encourage gossip, but it's incredible how much they will open up when they can talk about someone else. ;)

We also discussed current events, music, sports, TV, books, pop culture, etc. Even now, my kids crack me up! They are 22 and 18 so I won't share some of the discussions. But again, if they know the environment is a safe environment, they will open up.

We pray together (each person gets to pray) and then while eating we go around the table and talk about three positive things for each person, one thing to improve on, and one thing we'd like to do over (it can be good...do it again, or bad...do it differently and how).

This is a tradition for us, every night.

we talk about current events, things we did when WE were kids...just tonight as my boys were going through their Halloween candy - they asked - what was YOUR favorite candy growing up? What was Granddad's???

Menu for next week - any ideas or suggestions? want to try something new?

What about a field trip or a home school group for sports?

Books that they have read?
Books or stories they want to write??? Even at 4 and 7 - they can use their imaginations!!! If they can't write it - YOU write it out for them after dinner!!

There are times when we do word associations during dinner...say a word

red - the person to your left says the first thing that comes to mind with that word - nothing more - like black widow for red. or Blood. All depends upon their experience in life and what word they associate with it...it can be fun!!!

We started playing 20 questions with our 5 and 8 year old, and they love it. No fidgeting and trying to get up. They get to choose the topic of what we are guessing.

I also agree with High/Low for the day and Table Topics. We have done these as well, and they like it.

I like Table Topics. I use them for parties and road trips. I think that letting your kids take turns picking the cards and reading might make them feel good about being involved. The questions can be pretty thought-provoking and interesting.

http://www.google.com/#q=table+topics&hl=en&tbo=u...

A long time ago I bought a conversation starter from LTD commodities I think. It is a ketchup bottle but the name is Catch-Up Game. It has a set of cards with easy and hard questions. Some are not great for kids like "What was your favorite job" so we switch it a little and make it "what do you think will be your favorite job" or "what places do you think you'd like to work as a teen/young adult before you get your career job". It comes with a die as it is a game but we never use the die. We just pick a card to start a conversation. I'm sure there are kids versions out there.

Or just try to think of questions that your boys would enjoy. The other day my 6yo asked "If you had to choose between the two, would you rather be protected by shark proof glass or bullet proof glass". Strange question but everyone had an opinion and we talked about it for quite a while.

Try the Art of Conversation. It's a game that has a card with a question that everyone has to answer. There are several version including children's and Christian. Another idea would be to pick a famous quote or something (perhaps from their copy work) and everyone talk about what it means. With Thanksgiving around the corner and Christmas right after that gives lots of conversation topics concerning thankfulness and the less fortunate.

I am with my 5 year old son all day, but we still have too much to talk about at meals. Meals are always around an hour because, he loves talking. We talk about our favorite places, books, current events, up-coming projects we can do, plan family outings, make up our own silly stories (one or two sentences at a time with each person taking turns), plan the next day's schedule, stories about different family members who have already passed away, or live far away, or mom and dad when they where kids, we listen to music sometimes, what he is learning in Sunday school, and when the talking gets out of control we play the game, "Let's see if we can finish eating by 6:00." That usually results in my son asking us to tell him how to read the clock. He is five and can tell time pretty well now... Just relax and introduce them to classical or jazz music if you can't think of a topic that day.

Sounds like it might be nice for ALL of you to get out of the house a bit.
That way you could talk about what you saw, discovered, learned,that day, that didn't come from a book (or computer) at home.
Not bashing your decision to home school, but I thought that actually gave you MORE freedom to explore and enjoy the wider world, and hence, have more to talk about?

Sounds like you have not bought into the home schooling. But, to answer your post--talk to them about the election, their holiday wishes, hobbies...