I ask my family the same question every night. It's made us more positive and connected.

• I was tired of hearing my children complain every day, so I started asking them one simple question.
• "Can you tell me one good thing about your day?" I'd ask. No one could leave until we all answered.
• It has brought our family together in a way I never anticipated.

I'm willing to listen to my two kids vent about their day - to hear them whine, complain, and talk through their struggles. But after a while, I noticed they'd spiral into a loop of negativity that started when I picked them up from school and continued until bedtime.

In an attempt to pull them out of that pattern, I started asking one simple question every night at dinner. No one could leave the table until we all answered it, myself and my husband included.

"Can you tell me one good thing about your day?"

Sometimes the answer was no. So I would listen to the annoying, stressful, and sometimes genuinely terrible parts of their day.

Still, I firmly believe that even on the most dreadful of days, we can find one good thing that happened. Even if it took a while, they'd find something.

I tried to get them to focus on the good things

I saw that focusing on something good - even just one small thing - helped change their tone and shift their mindset.

As weeks stretched into months of my asking the same question every night, this difference got bigger. I noticed my kids would start looking for "good things" throughout the day just so they'd have something to share at dinner. Surprisingly, my husband and I did it, too.

I knew we hit a sweet spot when one of my boys announced, "I had three good things today!" Sure, sometimes those things would be breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But it went deeper, too.

I learned things about my kids I would've otherwise never known

I was delighted to learn about a classmate who helped my son with a tricky math problem, the big dodgeball victory in gym class, and how much my child adored his first-ever Hostess cupcake, which a friend had brought in for their birthday.

Without asking that nightly question, I don't think I would've ever known any of this.

Every now and then I'd get an answer like "My only good thing was when the bell rang at the end of the day." Sometimes I'd make them try again. But occasionally I'd let it slide, especially on those toughest of days.

As we inched toward Thanksgiving, I expanded the question to include something they were thankful for. The kids groaned a little at first. But again, I was pleasantly surprised by the results.

Even the most dedicated gamer - my youngest boy, who's 13 - didn't say he was thankful for his Xbox or an upcoming game release. No one even listed their computer or tablet. Only once did someone say WiFi.

I learned that my youngest is more philosophical than I give him credit for: He's thankful for oxygen and electricity (though maybe he was just learning about those in science that day).

Mostly our highlights were simple, everyday pleasures. Time with friends. Tacos. A clean garage. Fuzzy blankets. A new book. The rock-climbing gym. Rice with dinner. A cuddly puppy.

But the best part about asking that question every night was that it got us talking. It put us in a thankful mindset, and we learned a little something about each other that we may have never known otherwise.

For me, that newfound connectedness is at the very top of my list of good things.