Family Dinner Conversation Starters for Kids of All Ages

"How was school?" "Fine." You've probably had that exchange a few hundred times. It doesn't mean your kids don't want to talk to you. The question just has one easy answer, and they give it.

Why family dinner is worth protecting

Surveys of American teenagers by Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (now part of the Partnership to End Addiction) found that teens who ate dinner with their families five or more times a week were less likely to smoke, drink or use drugs than those who rarely did. Other studies have linked regular family meals with better vocabulary in young children and fewer signs of depression in teenagers. These are correlations, and families who eat together often differ in other ways too, but the pattern keeps turning up.

Whatever the exact cause, dinner is one of the few times in a busy week when everyone is in the same room, and the conversation is the part you can do something about.

The phones go somewhere else

Before anything else, put the phones away. Face-down on the table doesn't count; a basket on the counter works. This applies to parents at least as much as to kids. "Just a quick email" ends more family conversations than any sulking teenager.

Better openers than "How was school?"

Swap the general question for one that needs a specific answer. These work across most ages:

• "What was the weirdest thing that happened today?" Kids love weird, and this usually gets more than "fine."
• "Who made you laugh today?" Specific and positive, and it tends to come with a story.
• "If you could redo one minute of today, which minute would it be?" It shows you what's on their mind without them needing to know the word "stressed."
• "What's one thing you learned today that was actually interesting?" The word "actually" matters here. It gives them permission to say "nothing."
• "What's a question you had today that nobody answered?" Kids are curious all day long. Adults are too; we've just stopped saying so out loud.

Questions for mixed ages

With a seven-year-old and a fourteen-year-old at the same table, you need questions that work for both. Look for ones where the answer grows with the person answering:

• "What superpower would you pick, and what would be the catch?"
• "What's something you're better at this year than you were last year?"
• "If our family was a band, what would each of us play?"
• "What's one family rule you'd change if you were in charge?"
• "If you could teach the rest of us a class on something you know well, what would it be?"

Making it a habit without making it homework

The quickest way to kill family conversation is to make it compulsory. The same question every night, in the same order, with a parent obviously hoping for a particular answer, starts to feel like homework. A question that turns up now and then, for fun, with the adults answering too, becomes something the family looks forward to.

A few things help:

• Save it for one or two nights a week.
• Let the kids ask the questions too. The youngest person at the table often comes up with the best ones.
• Have the adults answer honestly, not in the sanitized parent voice. If the question is "what was the hardest part of your day?", answer it properly.

When nobody wants to talk

Some nights nobody does. A teenager had a bad day, a parent is exhausted, the energy isn't there. Let it go. A quiet meal is fine, and pushing conversation on an off night teaches kids that dinner is a performance.

Keep questions on the table

If you'd rather not come up with questions on the spot, keep a stack of cards on the table that a seven-year-old can reach and read aloud. Our Family deck was written for this. Kids' Corner suits younger children, and Parent and Child is for one-to-one talks with a teenager or grown-up child.

A jar of questions your family writes together works just as well, and sometimes better, because everyone wants to hear their own question picked.