My kids fight at the dinner table every night.
What should I do?
Start playing nice dice with them. Grab a die (ideally a blank die that you can write everyone’s initials on). You can grab a regular die out of one of your games and just assign each person a number. And if you have more than 6 people, grab a multi-sided die, and go to town! If you have fewer people than you have sides of the die, feel free to add pets or rerolls for the extra numbers.
Then take turns rolling the die and saying something nice about the person that you rolled. There are many variations of this that I’ve played through the years and you get to make up your own house rules. Some of my variations and house rules are listed below.
1. Avoid passive-aggressive or sarcastic comments entirely. They are not allowed.
For example:
Not Allowed: “I like your outfit today – it’s better than the crap you usually wear.”
Allowed: “I like your outfit today.”
Not Allowed: “I appreciate you unloading the dishwasher today even though I had to remind you 10 times.”
Allowed: “I appreciate you unloading the dishwasher today.”
2. If you roll your own name/number/initial, then you say something genuinely nice about yourself. Again, no sarcasm allowed.
3a. If you roll the same person twice, you are allowed to reroll.
OR
3b. If you roll the same person twice, they must need some extra love.
Make up as many nice-spirited rules as you want to.
Remember the goal is to come away from the table feeling good and positive about yourself and about the others at the table. Some people aren’t used to being genuinely nice to other people and this is a great way to practice.
Have fun with it!
