Ah ha..I'm definately on to something

So we did it again 2 more nights, the second night it was math questions again, simple to come up with and the kids actually love them. But the next night I had each of the children (ages 2-7) come up with 3 different questions..things like what shape is a stop sign? what phone number do you call if there is an emergency? what is your favourite t.v. show? Next I wrote the questions on the inside of paper napkins and randomly handed out the napkins when setting the table. Voila- instant conversation that lasted through dinner- and guess what I don't think I've heard the word poopies at dinner in about a week...miracle!

Family Mealtime Conversations

Eating meals together as a family is important to me, but sometimes- okay most times, I find that between our 7,5 and 2 year old children we spend more time refereeing the table manners and "bathroom humour", than we do engaged in conversation. Well the other day my daughter came to me with a bunch of new decorative paper napkins upon which she had written math questions addressed to each of our family members. At first I said, "What have you done? These are not for doodling"(then and idea struck me) "Well I said, I guess we'll all be doing math tonight at dinner". That night we did do math, had a great meal and "intellectual" conversation. Now I'm thinking we could write anything on napkins, tomorrow we will have each of the children write 3 questions each on a napkin, then we will mix them up and take turns answering each question over dinner...could this possibly be the end of bathroom humor at the dinner table?