Unplugged Moments™ started at our kitchen table.

Like a lot of parents of teens and tweens, I could feel something changing at home. Lola and I still loved each other fiercely, but the easy conversations we used to have were becoming shorter. Answers that once came with stories were turning into shrugs and one-word replies.

At the same time, I was feeling another kind of loss.

My dad died before Lola was born, and my mum passed away just before Lola entered her tween years. When Lola started asking questions about them, I realised how many stories I didn’t have. The little details you assume you’ll ask one day, until one day you can’t.

Lola felt that too. She often said she wished she knew more about them.

Then one evening during a sleepover, I noticed something that stopped me in my tracks. A room full of girls, sleeping bags everywhere, snacks on the floor… and almost complete silence. Not because they had nothing to say, but because they were all on their phones.

Sleepovers used to be full of whispered secrets, ridiculous questions and conversations that went on half the night.

So Lola and I decided to try something.

We started writing questions together. Not awkward “conversation starters,” but the kind of questions that make people laugh, remember things, tell stories and see each other differently.

The kind of questions kids will actually answer.

Those questions turned into the first deck of Unplugged Moments™.

Today there are different editions for families, teens, sleepovers and grandparents, but the heart of it is still the same idea Lola and I started with.

Sometimes all you need is the right question to bring people back into the same conversation again.

Because the best moments in life don’t happen on screens.

They happen when we’re truly present with each other.