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Dinner Games & Activities
reviewed by Anne Garber

Of course you've heard the expression "Don't play with your food." Didn't we all grow up on that concept? Well, now it's okay to play while you eat, which isn't the same thing at all, but it does make for a family mealtime in which everyone shares some of the spotlight.

FamilyTimeFun Dinner Games & Activities is a boxed (well, a tin, actually) set of 51 games for families with kids age 5 to 12 years to play at the dinner table -- while they eat. The games are short, easy to play and fun for the whole family.

Best of all, the games open up avenues for family talk, and no one ends up a "loser." Kids can take turns leading games, and there is even an inducement for reluctant veggie-eaters to get motivated to chew some greens.

This is a perfect gift to take to a family as a group gift when you're invited to dinner, and grandparents won't be thought to be "meddling" when they send along a present like this one!

Suggested retail price is $15.95 (USD) from this site.

FRANKLIN - Rolling dice on the kitchen table as a diversion to get little ones to eat their veggies or pouring uncooked macaroni into a glass and guessing the correct number are some of the games you might see played during dinnertime at the home of John Pandiscio.

The 41-year-old Franklin resident recently launched FamilyTimeFun Dinner Game, a collection of 51 games printed on spill-proof game cards that come in a recipe-style tin box with attached lid.

Easy and quick to play, the object of the games is to keep young children at the table.

"The game was created to add fun to dinnertime, but at the same time it also helps promote creative thinking and helps improve children's vocabulary, math and social skills," said Pandiscio.

No game board and no pieces are required. Some games use food, utensils and condiments on the table and take only a few minutes to play. While the games are designed for families with children ages 5 to 12, the games can be slightly changed so they are easier or more challenging depending on the ages of the children.

The rules are simple: Sit down to dinner, pick a card, read it aloud and play!

A former advertising executive, Pandiscio and his wife Sandi, who works in finance, always made it a point to be home for dinner with their young children. At meal time, they thought up simple games like passing the ketchup bottle as a way to engage their children in a fun activity and promote family interaction.

The couple found that when their children played a game, they lingered longer at the dinner table.

"We talked more at dinnertime than when we didn't play a game," said Pandiscio.

It wasn't until Pandiscio was laid off from his advertising job with Dunkin Donuts that he considered parlaying his family's love of game playing into creating an actual product. After researching the toy market, he found that there was no such thing as a game to be played exclusively while eating.

"There's a million games out there, but this is the only one that's played during mealtime," he said.

He started brainstorming game ideas, expanding on some tried-and-true ones that the couple had already been playing with 8-year-old Kyle and 4-year-old Jami, and creating some new ones.

"For months we played tons of games, maybe 200 games, or more," said Sandi with a laugh

The couple's son, Kyle, was dad's toughest critic.

"I valued his input," said Pandiscio.

If the third grader at Helen Keller Elementary School turned his nose up at a game, Pandiscio ditched it. If Kyle gave a game a thumbs-up, though, the game was then shared with other family members, friends and neighbors who filled out a questionnaire rating the game.

Pandiscio got back a lot of enthusiastic comments.

Once it was decided to offer 51 different games - "it just sounded like a good number," said Pandiscio - the next step was to get it into production.

It took several months to design the compact tin recipe box with bright, primary colors that fits nicely on any kitchen table or countertop. The game's logo: a knife, fork and spoon personifying a family including dad, mom and kid.

Each of the 51 games is printed on one card that is color-coded. There are six color-coded categories. Silly games are printed on yellow cards; memory games are printed on purple ones and so on.

One game on a blue card that falls into the social skills category is called "Pass the Pepper." Before passing a pepper shaker on, tell the best and worst thing that happened during the past week. Another suggestion: Tell what was the funniest or strangest thing that happened.

Whether dinner is a delivered pizza or a home-cooked meal, the Pandiscio family enjoys popping the lid of the tin recipe box, flipping through the cards and playing a game or two.

"They're fun games," acknowledged Kyle, who said he enjoys playing games - especially the one he thought up, which is appropriately named "Kyle's Lucky Vegetables."

Pandiscio sold his first games at a trade show he attended in New York in September. Since then, other retail stores have begun selling the game in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. More recently, a local chain restaurant bought several to hand out to visiting guests to play while they dine.

When Pandiscio got his first check for the game, he said it was "kind of a good feeling that you created something people enjoy," which is exactly the point of the game.

FamilyTimeFun Dinner Game costs $15.95 and can be ordered at www.FamilyTimeFunGames.com.

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Sometimes the main course is French toast. And sometimes, 9-year-old Madison and 5-year-old Alex bicker, or activities from karate to dance gum up the evening. But Kim Sloan still makes sure that she eats nightly with her children, and her husband joins in as much as possible. "That seems to be the only time we can sit down as a family together," says Sloan, a stay-at-home mother in Medway who also has an 18-month son, Trent.

For those who can manage it, the family dinner is a lifeboat in a sea of busy-ness, a time when the many obligations and distractions pulling us apart today are at least temporarily stilled. As I mentioned in a previous column, the benefits are dramatic: Family meals help protect children from drugs, depression and alcohol, and foster better grades, eating habits and levels of self-confidence.

But how do you get into the habit, especially at this extra-busy time of year? A big holiday feast is tough enough. Pulling off a nightly dinner can seem impossibly daunting. And yet nurturing the routine isn't as hard as you think, if you take the right approach. Here's how:

Make a commitment. We schedule so much else of our lives, why not the family meal, suggests Miriam Weinstein, a filmmaker and author of "The Surprising Power of Family Meals" (Steerforth Press, 2005) who's based in Manchester-by-the-Sea. By marking "family dinner" on the calendar, then you are more committed and can plan ahead. "If you don't have the institution in place, it's much less likely to happen," says Weinstein, who ate dinner regularly with her now-grown children.

Set the stage. You don't need to be fancy, but try to be civilized. Grabbing pizza slices from the kitchen and disappearing to separate rooms doesn't count, nor does snacking in the minivan. Put out place settings. Light candles. Set the stage for a good experience. "Everybody likes having a place where they are welcomed and wanted and where they belong," says Marialisa Calta, author of "Barbarians at the Plate: Taming and Feeding the Modern American Family" (Perigee, 2005).

Create refuge. My mother used to walk off an imaginary line across the kitchen, showing us where we could and couldn't play while she was preparing dinner.

Today, we need to draw "lines in the sand" around meals if we want to create the peace needed to connect with each other. That means switching off the television, phone, and other devices during meals and focusing on one another. Kempton Flemming, a City of Boston Treasury Department worker, says he and his family sometimes watch the news during dinner but always ignore the phone. "That's the time you can share ideas, converse, and discuss family matters," says Flemming, who eats at least four nights weekly with his wife, Cheryl, and three children, Teresia, 23, Nadane, 17, and Kempton Jr., 16. "It's not just eating."

Relax and have fun. Once you've carved out a place and time, chill and have fun. Some families play simple word games at the table to get conversation flowing. Noticing this, John Pandiscio, a former advertising executive and a father of two in Franklin, invented "FamilyTimeFun Dinner Games & Activities," a boxed set of 51 games on laminated cards that my daughters, ages 13 and 9, tried and loved.

Dinnertime also is a great time for telling stories, about your day or your crazy Uncle Dave.

A three-year study by Emory University professors Robyn Fivush and Marshall Duke found that preteens whose families tell such lore at dinner have higher self-esteem and better peer relations during adolescence, because they know their own history and identity.

"Those families really seem to be installing a sense of well-being in their children," says Fivush.

Starting a family meal habit may take a little effort, but it's worthwhile.

If you can't gather in the evening, try breakfast.

If you can't cook, do takeout by candlelight.

And if you think you can't sit down together because of your family's many sports or other obligations, Weinstein rightly reminds us that dinner is an important "practice" too - for the time when your children have their own families to nurture.

Maggie Jackson's Balancing Acts column appears every other week. She can be reached at maggie.jackson@att.net.

John Pandiscio of Franklin, Mass., a former advertising executive, has introduced the answer to keeping young children at the table.

He launched FamilyTimeFun Dinner Games for families with young children to play together at the dinner table while they eat. It's a collection of 51 games printed on spill-proof game cards that come in recipe-style tin box with a divider card. There is no game board and no pieces required.

One game is called "What's Missing" and asks one person to close his eyes while the others hide something from the table (spoon, napkin, ketchup bottle). The first person opens his eyes and tries to guess what's missing.

All games are quick, taking 1 to 3 minutes to play.

It's for families with kids in kindergarten to fifth grade.

The game set cost $15.95 and can be ordered at www.FamilyTimeFunGames.com. It's sold at Brainwaves Toy Shop in Narragansett, the Toy Mill in Tiverton, Walrus and Carpenter, Newport, and Biggles in Providence.