If you had told me a few years ago that I'd someday create a family conversation card game, I probably would have laughed.

Not because I didn't enjoy talking with my kids.

Mostly because our family dinners didn't exactly look like the heartwarming scenes you see in commercials.

We ate together four or five nights a week, usually squeezing dinner between baseball practice, guitar lessons, jiu-jitsu, homework, and everything else that comes with raising teenagers. We already had one rule that many families struggle with—we didn't allow phones at the table.

Unfortunately, removing the phones didn't magically create meaningful conversations.

Instead, dinner often sounded something like this...

Someone complained about the food.

Someone else made a ridiculous noise.

The boys would start laughing at an inside joke that my wife and I clearly weren't supposed to understand.

I'd remind them to eat before the food got cold.

They'd keep talking. The food would get cold. 

Then they'd complain that it was cold.

By the time my wife and I finished eating, the boys were still sitting there, somehow turning a twenty-minute meal into a forty-five-minute event. I'd often be standing at the sink washing dishes while yelling across the kitchen,

"Guys...please just finish eating."

Some nights, one of them ended up in his room because he simply couldn't stay focused long enough to finish dinner.

Needless to say, we weren't exactly having deep family conversations.

​Ironically, better conversations weren't even what I was trying to create.

Like most parents, I spend a lot of time thinking about my boys' future.

You notice patterns as your kids grow up.

Some make you proud.

Others quietly keep you awake at night.

My older son has always had big dreams. But I also noticed something that concerned me. If he decided he didn't like a teacher, a class, or an assignment, the effort often disappeared. Instead of working through something difficult, he'd mentally check out.

As an adult, I've learned that life doesn't really care whether we enjoy every task we're given. Success usually belongs to people who learn to work hard even when something isn't exciting.

That worried me.

Then came the essay.

He was about fifteen years old and had written an essay about a piece of Greek literature for his English class. It wasn't his first submission. His teacher had already graded it and generously offered him the chance to rewrite it.

He handed me the paper and asked for help.

I started reading.

The first paragraph alone didn't make much sense.

He had a thesis he was supposed to support, but the ideas didn't seem connected. They weren't building toward anything. They were simply...there.

I wasn't upset because of the grade.

Grades come and go. What bothered me was something much bigger.

As I started asking him questions about the story, the characters, and the plot, it became obvious he hadn't really wrestled with the material. He had read the words, but he hadn't engaged with the ideas.

Greek literature isn't exactly beach reading. I get it.

But life is full of things we don't naturally enjoy.

Learning how to think through difficult ideas, make connections, explain your reasoning, and defend your opinions isn't just an English skill.

It's a life skill.

And in that moment, I realized I wasn't worried about an essay.

I was worried about the adult he would someday become.

Around that same time, I had been reading The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.

It had me thinking a lot about how childhood has changed.

Kids today consume more information than any generation before them, yet they're often encouraged to react instantly instead of slowing down long enough to think.