Dinner Conversations for you and your Teens

I have two teen age daughters. To some degree, both are thinkers; but the eldest (by a whole 6 minutes and 32 seconds- they are twins) is a worrier. Unfortunately, she tends to do her worrying in the evening and at night and this often prevents her from sleeping. This has been going on for some time now and we as parents have been attempting to stave off this habit as well as draw closer to our teens by holding significant "worry sessions" during the evening meal. This has led to some very interesting and in depth conversations that probably would otherwise never have happened in our busy lives and it struck me that other parents may be searching for topics to discuss that they may not even realize their teens are thinking about! After conferring with my family I was able to remember quite a few of our recent ones.

 1) The problem of world hunger can be solved by.........(this led to quite a few creative ideas that they had come up with although not all of them sounded all that appetizing!)

2) Reasons for going/not going, to church (Actually we've had this one more than once... *sigh* because one daughter loves church and the other doesn't. Lovely.)

3) Why does *insert name here* act like *insert behavior here* all the time? (And sometimes) Why do they get away with it when I can't? (Another frustrating conversation!)

4) If I could change one thing in the world it would be.....

 5) Does Heaven really exist or is it just a metaphor? What about Hell? Are they the same for everyone? (Yes, this is one of the really heavy conversations, be prepared to make cookies after supper to continue the together time and the conversing because they won't be finished when supper is.)

6) Are rules/laws always right just because they are rules?

7) Why have there been so many earthquakes lately? Is the earth changing? Is there anything we can do? (This one is really recent.)

 8) Which is worse... marijuana  or alcohol? (Talk about a sticky topic!  Can't really choose here!)

9) If I could change the ending of *insert book title here* I would..... (particularly popular if we have just finished a book of whose ending they were not fond.  Yes, we do still read together! Kind of like a book club but better!)

10) What did that dream mean anyway?

 This is a sampling of what our dinner table conversation is like, not every night of course but in and amongst taking care of scheduling and other day to day debris some pretty healthy conversations happen around our place! Be aware that tempers have no place in these conversations, something that we have occasionally had to enforce on both teen and adult participants if topics get heated.  Open discussion no matter the topic is what you are after here. I hope that I have given you some ideas but the best ones will come from your teens themselves.  All you have to do is listen!