By Emely Varosky

My husband and I can’t agree on this.

See, there’s this section of our house, with a table in it.

It’s the kind of table you eat meals at. One could say, you dine at this table. Therefore, I call that section of our house, the dining room.

My husband says nope! There are no walls separating it from the fridge and oven. So he calls that section just part of the kitchen.

Either way, the point is, we eat there when the kids are over.

That’s something I’m proud of, by the way. We’ve consistently eaten our meals at that table in the unlabeled room since we moved into the house almost eight months ago, with only three meals in front of the TV. [high-fives self and husband]

And during those meals, we’ve started a habit. I first read about it a while ago in a parenting article (like this one from CNN): It’s called roses and thorns, in which all family members talk about the best part of their day (the rose) and the worst part (the thorn).

At first, I wasn't sure how to introduce the idea to the kids. I didn’t want it to turn into an assignment, dragging words out of them.

But I explained it, and we tried it. It was fine, but (if I'm honest) nothing remarkable.

I was glad we gave it a go, if only just to get it out of the way.

And I didn't bring it up again. I still had the concern of it feeling more like a chore than a conversation. How important was it anyway, I wondered. Talking about anything was still better than watching a screen.

It wasn’t until a few nights later as we were sitting down in the unlabeled room, that my stepdaughter said, “Can we play that game, the best part of your day?”

I was a little surprised. She'd remembered it? Impressive. And she’d thought it was a game? Even better!

After that, it became our thing to do at dinner.

Still apprehensive about the chore-like feeling, I usually kept my own answers short and sweet. But one day, back in February, my answer for my “rose” was a bit more complicated. I wanted to say how I’d enjoyed designing the newspaper’s Blizzard of ’78 anniversary special section — and that required a little elaboration, because the kids didn’t know anything about it. I don't think they'd even heard of the blizzard to begin with.

So I started explaining. I described the photos and the fun facts, how snow had kept people stuck on the roads for hours, or stuck in their houses for days – and suddenly realized the kids were actually listening intently. They both asked questions, and offered comments, and I realized for the first time that no, they weren’t seeing this whole thing as a chore.

This really was a conversation.

We play our “game” at least once a week now, when the kiddos are over.

Two weeks ago, we even added one more layer we each have to answer: What’s something nice you did for someone else today?

My husband and I figure, since we're reflecting on our day anyway, we can help the kids be more aware of how they're impacting other people — even if we only get to ask about it the few days a week they're at our house.

Sometimes they can't think of a worst part, so we ask them for a second good part. And if they can't think of how they've been helpful, we remind them the day isn't over yet, so they can still do something nice between dinner and bedtime. (I think we have to work on checking back in with them on that, though. Work in progress!)

These little questions give a great jumping off point into thinking about:


things to be thankful for
challenges we're facing
and how we can affect other lives positively.

My husband and I give the kids some insight into our non-kid lives, and we ask the kids follow-up questions about their answers to help them elaborate and to learn more about their non-parent lives. It's pretty much a win/win.

And unlike the kitchen/dining room naming dilemma, that’s something both my husband and I can agree on.

Email Emely Varosky at evarosky@heraldnews.com.