Works For Me Wednesday ~ August 29
Kids are funny creatures at the dinner table. They’re either shovelling in the food like a Survivor contestant after winning a food reward, dropping scraps on the floor for the dog (…oh wait - we don’t have a dog) or surreptitiously trying to poke a pea up their nose just to see what it feels like.
Or is that just my family? Ahem.
In our house, we do something we ingeniously entitled The Good and Bad Game. Going around the table, we each talk about at least one good thing and one bad thing that has happened to us that day. At this stage in the game (our kids are almost-9, 7 and 5 ½), the tidbits that come forth are hardly earth-shattering (”Sarah went ahead of me on the playground today! It’s not fair!”) but we figure it serves as a starting point for deeper conversation (”Well, going down the slide fourteen times in a row probably wasn’t that fair to Sarah either, sweetie.”) And we’re hoping as the kids get older, and their lives get more complicated than slides and jungle gyms, that they’ll be far more likely to open up with their problems. Plus, its lovely to hear about their ‘good’ things. We’ve talked about getting special praise from a teacher, helping a friend at lunchtime, special responsibilities, lost teeth and fun schoolwork. Of course, we talk about these things at other times too, but The Good and Bad Game is a hightlight of the evening meal for all of us :)
As usual, drop in at Rocks in my Dryer for more WFMW participants :)
Cheers,
Lizzie
Leave a Comment
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
Just an Aussie mother to three, wife to one, special needs advocate, sometimes crafter, always procrastinator and awesome baker. Well maybe not bread. Bread alludes me.
What a great idea :) We like to encourage discussion at our dinner table as well. It’s the one meal that I always insist we share altogether, if possible.
That is a cute idea. It’s so creative.
What a great way to start dinner conversations! Plus, when your kids are older, it was seem natural for them to discuss their day.
Great idea - thanks for sharing!
This sounds much more fun and effective than the usual “What did you do today?” The boiler-plate question gets the standard response “played”.
We do the same exact thing. We call it good thing/ bad thing.
Everyone shares a good thing and a bad thing.
It’s a great way to find out what’s going on in their lives.
The kids love it.
What a great idea!
I always want to keep it positive, otherwise they start moaning about school.
We do this sometimes too…we call it High-Low! Thanks for sharing!!