A few nights ago, I broached the idea of the dinner table as a “stress free zone”—where we stay positive, and don’t criticize, with no technology. There wasn’t too much push-back conceptually, so we’ll see how it plays out.

We played the game “2 Truths and a Lie,” which generated a lot of energy and excitement around the table. We really had a blast! But in addition to the “fun” aspect of it, we managed to get deeper without anyone realizing it. One of Jeremy’s (hubby’s) “truths” was that he once ran a race against a pro football player named Lynn Swann. Of course, we thought it was a lie, but it turned out that he was talking about the NY Marathon, which Lynn Swann happened to run at the same time.

My son Zach (age 10) started asking him all kinds of questions about it, particularly about how he had done so well. This got Jeremy talking about how hard he had worked to finish as fast as he did. Jeremy is always trying to tell the kids how important it is to work hard and keep going, even when they want to give up. But it came out so naturally through our dinner conversation that I don’t think they (Jeremy included) even realized how naturally he was conveying his values to them.