THE FAMILY Dinner Game, designed to encourage communication in the family, is the latest offering from the Newry, Co Down based Family Caring Trust. The idea is that the family gets together once a week at dinner time to play. So we sat down and gave it a lash myself, the two kids and their Dad.

The grown ups took a look at the contents of the game box and winced: questions up for discussion come under headings such as "I Feel..." and "I value..." The prospect a twee, Californian, group hug evening set Daddy, who lives somewhere between sceptical and cynical, lunging for the TV remote control.

But a job's a job and it had to be done. Each member of the family took a go at throwing the dice. Each number corresponds to the number on a particular set of questions.

Number six, the wild cards, are the best crack, offering moments of complete family member humiliation - Daddy balancing a fork on his nose, Mammy trying to raise her right eyebrow twice and then her left eyebrow twice. The kids fall around the place laughing.

There were even cringier moments. Our son disclosed that he couldn't remember ever having had a special moment in his life. The Parents of the Year Award looking doubtful, we battled on.

The game has no competitive element, and it can get a bit boring. According to Michael Quinn of the Family Caring Trust, any element of, competition is deliberately avoided: "The culture we live in is very competitive. We wanted to get away from the idea of achievement and who's the best in the game."

The parental attention span comes under severe pressure listening to children giving detailed accounts of inane events in their lives, and you constantly catch yourself about to say, "Yes, very good, who's go is it now?"

However, interrupting is totally against the rules - and just how hard it is to continue listening is very enlightening. You realise what an expert you have become in feigning "good parent" interest in their stories and how little you actually take in half the time.

According to The Family Caring Trust, "it may feel boring at times to listen to others without interrupting. Perhaps that is the price to pay for a richer family life. After all, the idea is to build greater openness and freedom in your family, to encourage and stimulate your children's development and to get to know one another better."

However, some of the questions can be tricky; parents and children alike might prefer to avoid them at the expense of getting to know each other better.

"The game is ideally suited to parents who have done one of our parenting courses in communication, and it is designed to reinforce the skills they have learned," Quinn says.

The right to silence should be respected, Quinn adds, and when a difficult issue comes up, he suggests leaving it to a more appropriate moment and talking to children on a one to one basis if necessary.

In itself, The Family Dinner Game wasn't the most exciting game we parents ever played - but we did get a kick out of the kids' pleasure. They thought it was one of the best games they ever played - they still ask to play on a daily basis.

And it can be nice to make an enormous effort to listen to them now and again - or once a week even.