Sometimes kids do not want to share at the dinner table. If you have a 5-year-old that child might want to share everything that happened from the moment his or her eyes opened for the rest of the day but a 14-year-old not so much. It can be really nice to use some kind of almost pre-made conversation starters. Things like if we won a million dollars as a family what is the best vacation you think we could take with that or if you could have any superpower in the world what superpower would you want to have. If you could meet anybody from history who would it be and why.
Those are really fun conversation starters for kids of all ages and adults too. It's a way to kind of get the conversational ball rolling. Kids like to talk about that and it'll give you a lot of insight into what your kids are thinking about right now. You can kind of put in your brain other questions you want to ask as you go along so having a few of those ready when you first sit down is a nice way to go.