Keeping young kids focused on conversation at the dinner table isn’t always easy, but these family dinner conversation starters will surely do the trick!
Family dinners are something I hold at a high level of importance, but during the baby years, they were difficult to make work for our family’s schedule. Usually I’d feed the girls early (5:15 pm or so) then make dinner for David and myself once they were asleep (7:00 pm). We are now in a place where things have shifted. At three and five years old, we have made the transition to eating as a family. With David’s unpredictable work hours, sometimes this means just the three girls and I save David a plate, but at least a few times a week it means all four of us sit down at the dinner table together. Right now I start making dinner around 5:00 pm we eat between 5:30 pm and 6:00 pm.
Dinners are not always elaborate. I rely heavily on my favorite kid-approved crockpot meals and my favorite family-friendly meals that come together in less than 20 minutes quite often. Dinner is not a speedy event either. I don’t mind that so much, as I like the time spent around the table as a family, but the loss of focus and the girls hopping up from the table (95% of the time it’s so they can take turns singing songs and dancing, I kid you not) are something I’ve been working on reigning in.
I’ve found that with preschoolers, natural lengthy conversations don’t necessarily come easily. One on one, Hailey (5) could carry on quite the conversation, but with Kaitlyn (3) thrown in the mix, it’s easy to lose the flow of the conversation, so these family dinner conversation starters come in quite handy!
To remedy this, there are three dinner conversation starters we use to get the ball rolling.
The Rather Game
Hands down, this is the girls’ favorite game. We often haven’t even all sat down yet but Kaitlyn is already asking if we can play the rather game. The premise is simple: we go around the table and each person gets a turn to make up their own question. Would you rather ____ or ____? Each person gives their answer and explanation of why they chose it.
Sometimes the questions are silly.
Kaitlyn: Would you rather eat dinner with Cinderella or Jasmine?
Sometimes they are informative.
Hailey: Would you rather eat eggs or cereal for breakfast?
And other times, they are more conversational when the kids can’t really decide which to choose.
Me: Would you rather go hiking in the woods or swimming at the beach?
I like this game because it lets everyone participate, but the segments are short and quick which keeps even the youngest engaged and leaved plenty of time for bites between question.
The Grateful Game
Do I even call this a game? It’s a question. But for some reason calling it a game makes it sound super fun for the girls. I love this “game” because it keeps me on my toes. As you probably imagine, we all take a turn sharing one thing we are grateful for. Oftentimes it is what I might expect:
Hailey: I’m grateful for my family because I love you and I’m going to live with you forever. (direct quote)
Kaitlyn: I’m grateful for going swimming.
But every once in a while they’ll surprise me.
Hailey: I’m grateful for bees even if they want to sting me because I like honey and they make good honey. Wait, does anyone else make honey?
Continue the Story
This game is actually our typical lunch-time go to activity. The girls love stories. They love listening to stories and telling stories. So we combine both these things to create an engaging meal time activity. One of us begins the story with a sentence or two, then we rotate around the table. The person to the left adds on the next sentence to the story. Rarely do the stories end up making sense, but they always end up with giggles.
Again, this is a great game because it gets everyone involved but also allows for natural pauses to take bites.
I enjoy family dinners for so many reasons. Not only have they taught (forced?) me to slow down my eating speed, they’ve reminded me that dinner time is partially about the food, but also about connecting at the end of our days, sharing our thoughts, and bonding as a family.
How does dinnertime work at your house?
Do you struggle to keep everyone seated, like me?
Do you have a favorite family dinner conversation starter yourself?
JOHN J STATHAS says
What a cool way to enhance the value of family dinners. Glad you have continued our family dinner tradition with some novel twists. Great ideas. (Wish I had thought of them when you were young 🙂 )
montessoriishmom says
I love these! We just started having family dinners again a few weeks ago and are really loving it! For a while, my baby was going to bed so early he ate dinner at like 4:45, but now we can eat at 5:30-6, which is earlier than I would naturally eat, but is so worth it. I will definitely keep these in mind when he’s older!
julie says
I love this post and it makes me excited for the days when Chase can really engage in conversation (though 2-years-old is such a fun phase, too)! When I was growing up, my dad would always ask me and my sister what we did that day that made us proud… he’d phrase the question differently but he wanted us to think about something we did every day that made us feel proud of ourselves/like we did something right/beneficial — whether it be answering a question correctly in school, helping a friend find something they lost, etc. I still remember this question popping up at the dinner table all the time!
Laura says
“Would You Rather” is my 5 year old daughter’s absolute favourite game to play at the dinner table! We also do “High, Low, Funny” where we go around the table and everyone says their high, low and funny of the day. It’s a nice way of reflecting on the events of the day, and the “low” is actually a good way to get a better understanding of her perspective of things.
Family dinner with our 11 month old is defintely a lot of work right now but well worth it for us.
Nikki says
I have a 3 year old and 1 year old and may need to try some of these (with the older)! She is always in and out of her chair – again to dance, ask for a song, etc., and I would love to try to cut down on that!
Kathy says
Love it. The ‘games’ are clever. I am always holding out to eat together–the time has gotten later and later but we still manage. I feel it has kept our family close. Have a great weekend!
Jenn says
We eat around 5:30 to 6 and my husband can be hit or miss. For some reason our would you rather game always takes a turn for something about poop! 🙈
Heather says
Love these ideas! We definitely have struggles keeping everyone in their seats even though we’ve been eating dinner together since the kids could sit in their high chairs. I used to play music in the background, but that often led to them requesting silly songs because they wanted to get up and dance. Now we try and find out a little about their day since we work full time and they’re in day care. Our son is getting better about remembering what he did, but our 3 year old usually makes something silly up, which can be fun too.
Elizabeth Evans says
You’re fun. I’m not organized like this but wish I was! I too love family dinners and start cooking around the same time when I’m home, our dad is also normally working but sometimes makes it home for dinner. I’ll ask them about their favorite part of the day and what they’re grateful for. We’ll have to give these games a try. I’m BIG on not getting out of their seats, this is something that we dealt more with when they were just out of the highchair. I told them to pretend there was hot lava on the floor and they couldn’t get out of their chairs. Now, I just correct them & tell them to get back in their seats. I also reward them with dessert if they are well behaved & eat their food (I don’t think you like to do this but it works for us 🙂
Have a great weekend!
Katie says
Loved this post! We are still in the phase where my toddler eats and then we eat, but I’m looking forward to eating as a family one day.
Jodie says
A bit off topic as I too am working on being a good role model for my son–
I notice often when your family has pasta, you will have zoodles or if they have rice, you will have riced cauliflower. Is it because you honestly feel better this way or do you think it partly has to do with caloric intake? To piggy back, do the girls notice if you have something different and what do you tell them?
Brittany Dixon says
It really depends on the day. I do love riced cauliflower and zoodles, and when I have a lot of them, I’ll feed them to the whole family. But if I only have a little, I selfishly keep them to myself- ha! But I do eat rice and pasta too, but if I’ve been carb-heavy earlier in the day, I usually prefer a lighter dinner.
My girls really don’t notice it that much, probably because it’s always getting switched up depending on the night. Also, I like to do half and half (half rice half cauli, etc) and will give that to David and the girls as well.
Erica says
Great game ideas! I will have to pin this for later. My toddler is in the stage where he wants to do everything himself so dinner can be a rather drawn out affair. It takes him much longer to eat than my husband and I. We are seeing this a good reminder that we eat to fast and we should slow it down and talk more! We are lucky with my husband’s work hours, he is usually home by 5:30 so we can all eat early together. I think I would really miss having him at dinner if his work schedule changed!
Toni says
Love these games! Try these too:
– “What’s missing?” Give the child 10 seconds to look at & memorize everything on the table. Then, have her close her eyes while you take something away. She must open her eyes and try to tell what’s missing.
These are for ages 5+ …
– “Going on a picnic” Go around the table, and have each person tell what they’re bringing, but they have to say what everyone else is bringing from the beginning, adding to it each turn. The one who remembers the most “wins”. use ABC order to help the kids remember, I.e. “I’m going on a picnic, and I’m bringing an apple, a banana, a cat, a dog, etc”
– 20 questions- one person writes down a person place or thing that only they know. Everyone takes turns asking a question to try and figure out what it is in 20 questions or less. Ex: “is it living or nonliving?” “What’s it made of?” “What’s it used for?” Etc
Also, there are a ton of printable convo starters available that u could make for a jar that stays nearby.
You’ve inspired me to actually print some out and use them! Happy family dinners!! xxo
Brittany Dixon says
I knew you would have some great ideas! I love the “what’s missing” game and can see both the girls loving that! I’m going to play that with them tonight 🙂
And I remember playing the picnic game when I was little- good memories. Thanks Tones!!
Emily says
Great post! This is going to sound like an odd question but what kind of pasta do you use? I’ve been looking for a healthier alternative to my beloved white but sometimes I find the others can taste a bit like cardboard lol.
Brittany Dixon says
I’m all over the place! I’ve had good luck with red lentil pastas so I snag those when I see them, but since we don’t eat a ton of pasta, I usually just get the good ‘ol white pasta because it tastes so good! We’ve also tried the “veggie” pasta that has a serving of vegetables in each pasta serving, but I only snagged that because of the marketing. Typically I buy organic store brand regular pasta 🙂