The minute my kids started activities without me (pre-school, Karate, kindergarten) they became reluctant talkers at the dinner table.
Me: What did you do today?”
Them: “nothing”
Hello?! We aren’t even CLOSE to the teen years yet and we’re getting “nothing” in terms of disclosure.
So I’ve come up with some talking flash points which gets the dinner table conservation popping.
Who got hurt today? — this usually creates an outpouring of tattle-tales; who did the hurting, who got hurt, how much blood was involved.
Did anyone have anything crazy to eat today? — this gets the low-down on who, in the class, had chocolate pudding for snack 1 (hello? snack 1 is supposed to be a fruit – chocolate pudding?!), who had cold pizza for lunch, who spilt their soup. [NOTE: this is also a good way to get new snack ideas…ok – perhaps not cold pizza – but this is how I found out Thing 2 wanted to try squiggles]
What did the teacher wear? — though this isn’t an interesting subject (well, unless you are a fashionista – which I’m not) it is a starting point. Kids remember everything and can tell you “blue jeans, red t-shirt, yellow whistle”.
Great ways to get the conversation going at the dinner table, for sure! Usually my 3 and a half year old will be great at talking to me about his day, like yesterday, "How was your day?", I asked him, and said "Good. Me and baby Christos got in a fight over a rock." (That's his cousin). Love that he tells me everything – at least for now, right? 😉
Those are great! We sometimes play "said, saw heard" at dinner time(tell something you said to a friend or saw at school or something interesting you may have heard.Or "grin or grimmace" – tell something that made you smile during the day or made you unhappy. Our son loves this. Sadly, I'd prefer to eat in silence while reading the paper. No suck luck however… 🙂