Review – Fink Cards

I received two packs of these cards in the post recently – the family version and the mum’s version (which retail together for £12). I didn’t know much about them when they arrived, having just skim-read the website and found myself intrigued.

I’ve seen sheets of random questions to ask your spouse on ‘date night’ on Pinterest, and wondered if they really worked, or if they’d feel false and forced, so I was really interested in seeing what my children made of these packs of cards.

The family pack consists of 54 cards, each with a simple question on them. Fink describes them as ‘thought provoking’. The mum back is divided into a set of question cards for mum to ask her children, and a set for her children to ask her.

They look great, in bright, cheerful colours, and my children were immediately drawn to them and wanted me to ask them some of the questions from the family pack. It wasn’t how I’d envisaged it – I’d expected us to all be sitting around the table after supper, having a lovely family discussion prompted by the card – but it was interesting all the same.

Some great insight and fascinating answers spilled out of my children’s mouths, and I found myself feeling pleasantly surprised by how well the cards had been received.

We played with the ‘mum’ pack at a later date, when my mum was over, and we had a similar experience – lovely, interesting discussions, which my mum was able to be involved in.

So far so good – the cards did what they said on the tin. But, I have one big reservation, and that is that these cards could have different effects depending on what is the nature of the family using them.

I’m assuming that they are aimed at families who don’t already talk to each other, based on the Fink Families concept, that asks parents to sign up to pledge to do three things each day:

1. Each day, tell your child something that is great about them, something you admire, respect or love about them. It doesn’t have to big!

2. Each day, have one talking moment with you child, it does not matter how long, just one talking moment.

3. Smile at your children each day. I know this sounds simple, but you would be surprised how many people don’t do it……

I realise from this pledge that there are many, many families who don’t communicate with their children at all, because these three things I don’t even have to consider doing with my children – they just happen, and not just once a day, but all day long.

So I can see that these cards could be a really useful way to open up communication channels in families where the parents even struggle to smile at their children, but someone pointed out to me what a frightening hornets nest could be stirred up by asking some of these questions in families who aren’t used to communicating.

Despite the apparent simpleness of the questions, some of them, for example ‘what is your earliest memory?’ could lead to a lot of unexpected pain, with parents who are unprepared to help a child deal with it…or who may not even be able to deal with it themselves.

And then for families who do talk to each other a lot? Do they have any value? Well, we found them to be interesting and fun, but I’m sorry to say I’m not sure I’d spend any money on them myself, although I’m pleased to own two packs. There are lots of lists of similar questions doing the rounds on the internet that could be printed out to stimulate discussion…but I’m not sure even that would be necessary in our family. There are no moments when we’re lost for things to talk about, both deep and meaningful things and ‘what shall we have for supper?’ type discussions.

All in all I’m in two minds about these cards. They’re a wonderful idea, and there are many more to choose from – a dads’ set, teens, team building, and even a travel set (actually, that makes me think, these would be ideal for long journeys, but not sure why a specific travel set is necessary) – and they’re quite fun, but I think something to be used judiciously and with more care than the manufacturers suggest.

Free Your Parenting