Aug. 21, 2000 -- Can we talk?

It's a line that the comedienne Joan Rivers made famous, but it could be every family's plea for a way to communicate and reconnect at the end of a busy day.

Unfortunately, by the time everyone sits down to dinner, chances are you're tired, hungry, and hassled -- hardly the best conditions for great conversation.

If your family has forgotten how to talk, take heart: "It's a habit that can be relearned," says Michael Resnick, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota's Medical School and director of the National Teen Pregnancy Research Center.

"It doesn't have to be the big gargantuan talk, the existential blockbuster," he says. "It can and should be small talk."

Here are some ways to make your next dinner a time of sharing:

Light a candle. Every night, Resnick, his wife, and 9-year-old son, Ari, light a candle at their dinner table. "It has a calming, centering effect," says Resnick. "When the candle is lit, that is when we sit down. This is not a religious experience, it is a social signal that we are eating now." Similarly, when dinner's over, Ari blows out the candle to show that the conversation is over, and the adults "go back to lunacy," Resnick says, including the phone, fax, and whatever else is waiting beyond the kitchen door.

Don't discipline during dinner. Many baby boomers "grew up in families where the family dinner was not pleasant," says Eric Maisel, a marriage and family therapist and the author of 20 Communications Tips for Families (New World Library). "The breadwinner was coming home, angry and demanding, and the mom had stress and tension," he says. "The kids couldn't wait to get away."

Gender roles have changed, but the stress level has increased, which means that parents have to take special pains to make the dinner table a pleasant place.

One key is to defer discipline until after dinner, Maisel says. If a child has poor table manners, don't criticize him in front of the family -- wait until dinner is over, then discuss how he can improve. Similarly, don't react immediately if a child raises a problematic issue, such as a poor grade in math class. "Hold off reacting in that split second," Maisel says. Instead, "come back later and say, 'Can I help?' " Your child won't lose face, and more importantly, she'll feel safe bringing up such subjects at the dinner table.

Find something interesting to talk about. Ideally, the conversation you have at the dinner table should be interesting, educational, and engage everyone's attention -- not a boring litany of everything that needs to be done around the house or what went wrong at work.

A Window to the Wider World

Peter Goldenthal, a pediatric and family psychologist, says that dinner discussions are a great time to get kids thinking about the world beyond the kitchen table.

"They see that their parents are interested in the political process and concerned about who our leaders are, concerned about the values that they manifest," says Goldenthal. "They also hear from their parents about the wider world. Kids are very curious about what comes next."

Simple as it sounds, talking and eating as a family go a long way toward establishing a sense of connectedness -- something experts say is sorely lacking in our fast-paced world.