How I Taught My Kids to Chat at Dinner

One thing I realized very quickly after my marriage ended was…

…that kids don’t always kick off deep conversations during dinner.

On an average weeknight, Toby, Anton and I would sit down at the table, and I would say, “So, tell me something about your days,” and they would stare into the middle distance or say “Nothing really happened,” until I pitched doing a round of rose-bud-thorn, to which they’d answer monosyllabically, and then I’d think up another question for the group and…you get the gist.

So, in an attempt to stop playing talk show host at family dinner, I explained to the boys that part of eating a meal with other people — along with clearing your dish and thanking the chef — is engaging in conversation. Part of your role is to chat!

To clearly show them what I meant, I suggested we go around the table, and each person could ask someone else a question, listen closely to their answer, and ask a couple follow-ups.

“I’ll start!” said Anton, always up for a challenge. He turned to his brother and paused to think. “Um, Toby…have you met any famous people?”

“I’ve met three Minor League superstars, but I’ve met zero actors,” Toby told him, earnestly. “I really want to meet Matthew McConaughey, who played Buster Moon in Sing. You have to give it to him, he did a great job playing a koala.”

After that, we were off to the races. We all talked about movies, music, and celebrity run-ins, then the school play (Shrek) and stage fright and phobias and bravery, then how much I hate elevators. It was amazing, I was pinching myself.

“If you’re out to dinner with people, I would probably say, what’s your favorite movie?” Toby told me this morning, when I asked for his pro tips. “What’s your favorite sport? What’s your hobby? Do you know Matthew McConaughey? If you know where someone is from, you can ask them if they like their local sports team. I met a person from Memphis the other day, and I said, are you a Grizzlies fan? When I met Gus, who is Dan Pelosi’s boyfriend, he said he was from the Bay Area, so I asked him if he liked the Warriors, and he said yes. So, that was a fun fact.”

Since then, our family dinners have been so much more fun. Of course, there are nights when the boys are taciturn or grouchy or fill-in-the-blank-because-they-are-still-kids-after-all, but mostly they show up ready to kick off a few juicy convos.

Want to come over for dinner? These two will chat you up!!!

Thoughts? What about you? What are your dinner rituals? Or general strategies for interacting with teenagers?? Jenny Rosenstrach also come up with six prompts to get kids talking at dinner, if you’d like to see.

P.S. Nine tips for eating out with kids, and Toby and Anton in conversation, haha.