Goods and Bads

That's how we create stimulating conversation at the dinner table in our house.

With everyone running in a million different directions throughout the day, it is important for everyone to put on the brakes at 6 PM for dinner.

After the fighting has ceased over who has to put the cups on the table, and all of the last minute items like the salt and the pitcher of water are placed on the table, my family sits down, bows their heads over their plates, and starts shoveling food into their mouths as fast as they can (after a blessing, of course).

They aren't much for words if left to their own devices (or maybe this just means that I am a marvelous cook).

I must intervene if I am to know any information about the enormous portion of time that my children (and husband) spend away from me each day.

So we do "Goods and Bads".

It's quite simple, really.  We start at one end of the table and each person gets to share one good thing and one bad thing that happened to them that day. 

Sometimes the flood gates open up and one person (uh hem, husband) will drone on and on until we are all bored to tears.  

But usually after a moment of quiet thoughtfulness, something good and something bad will be blurted out and then the shoveling will resume.

I am never disappointed by the wide range of topics that these two little questions will produce.

Tonight's topics included:
Incisors (pronounced in-scissors).  This was the good and bad since Hunter painfully bit down and loosened his tooth;
Connor imagines making his teacher faint by cleaning up around his desk.  The teacher faints and falls on him while he's doing the splits--OUCH (Okay, that one was weird!); 
Emily was very, very amazed that she got second chair in band playing the flute (we encourage our children to go for second place);
And when all else fails, they resort to saying that their good is this "very delicious dinner."

Try it with your family tonight!