April 6, 2002

Dinner Topics

NOTE: Use meal times to share your lives, teach moral values, and practice good conversational manners - Don't interrupt - No put downs - Look at the person who is talking.

• What was the high point of your day?
• What was something interesting that happened today?
• What's something you did today that you never did before?
• What's something you're looking forward to?
• Appreciation Time: What's something someone in the family did for you recently that you appreciated?
• What's a way that you helped someone recently?
• What's a way that someone helped you recently?
• Tell one thing you learned this week.
• Take turns asking questions: Ask anyone else at the table a question (if they don't want to answer that one, they can request another.) The person who answers the question asks the next question. Keep going until everyone has been asked a question.
• What's something that's been on your mind lately that you haven't told anybody about?
• Who's having a problem or worry that the rest of us might help with?
• Dear Abby: Clip a letter to Dear Abby; read it out loud, but not the advice. E.g., "Dear Abby, I'm fifteen; I'm pregnant, and I'm scared to death to tell my parents. What should I do?" Ask, "What advice do you think Abby should give this girl?"
• One-word topics: Someone suggests a one-word topic: school, sports, friends, clothes, music, God, prayer, heroes, love, drinking, R-rated movies, television shows, shoplifting, etc. Family members can say anything they like in response to the topic.
• Read a short piece from a book or a good article.