Grandparents have a pretty good deal when you think about it. They get the cuddles, the stories and the fun days out, then quite often hand the children back just before bedtime.
But when grandparents and grandchildren don’t live around the corner from each other, keeping that relationship close can take a little more effort.
Maybe Grandma lives three hours away. Perhaps Grandad is at the other end of the country. Maybe the family has moved abroad. Whatever the reason, you don’t need to see each other every Sunday to be properly involved in each other’s lives.
And while technology has made staying in touch much easier, firing 14 photos into the family WhatsApp group isn’t quite the same as sharing the little everyday moments.
So, here are some simple ways to help grandparents and grandkids stay close, wherever they happen to live.
Video calls are one of the easiest ways to bridge the distance. Age UK recommends video calling as a way of staying connected with friends and family, particularly when they live further away.
The trick is to make it a habit rather than something you remember to do once every six weeks.
It doesn’t have to be a formal 45-minute family conference call either. In fact, with younger children, five minutes of enthusiastic shouting followed by somebody wandering off to find a biscuit may be more realistic.
Try:
Regular little conversations help grandparents become part of everyday life rather than somebody the children only catch up with on birthdays and Christmas.
Birthday photos are lovely. First days at school deserve documenting. Christmas morning will probably produce enough photographs to fill your phone before you’ve even opened the Quality Street.
But don’t forget the ordinary stuff.
The muddy walk. The missing front tooth. The disastrous attempt at baking. The child asleep sideways across the sofa. The dog wearing somebody’s school jumper for reasons nobody can adequately explain.
These are the little glimpses into family life that help somebody who lives miles away feel involved.
You could create a family WhatsApp group specifically for photos, use a shared digital album or simply make a point of sending one or two pictures every week.
No need to send 47 photos of the same trip to the park though. One or two of the good ones will do.
Children often have plenty to tell grandparents once they’re actually talking to them. Getting the conversation started can sometimes be the difficult bit.
Giving grandparents a little role can help.
Perhaps Grandad becomes the person who gets the weekly football update. Grandma gets sent pictures of every questionable baking experiment. Maybe they help with homework, listen to reading practice or become the official judge of the child’s latest drawing.
Age UK suggests taking an interest in grandchildren’s hobbies and even asking them to teach grandparents about the technology they use. It turns the relationship into a two-way street. Grandparents have decades of knowledge to pass down, but grandchildren can teach them a thing or two as well.
Although whether Grandma really needs to understand Roblox is another matter.
Not everything has to arrive through a screen.
Children love getting post addressed specifically to them, and grandparents are generally pretty good candidates for bringing back the lost art of actual letters.
They could send postcards from trips, little notes, newspaper cuttings, recipes or the occasional terrible joke. Grandchildren can send drawings, school photos and letters back.
Younger children could dictate a message for a parent to write. Older children might enjoy having their own pen pal arrangement with a grandparent.
Suddenly, the thud of the post hitting the doormat becomes slightly more exciting than another pizza leaflet.
Grandparents are walking family archives.
They know what Mum was like at eight. They remember Dad’s spectacular teenage haircut. They probably have photographic evidence of both.
Grandparents sharing family stories with children is more important than you’d think. Helping younger generations understand where they come from and feel part of a wider family history is great for that family bond.
So ask questions.
What was school like when you were little? What did you do during the summer holidays? What was Mum’s favourite toy? Where did you go on your first holiday? What did Great-Grandad do for work?
You could even record some of these conversations. Today’s funny story about Dad getting stuck in a tree could become a piece of family history that gets passed down again in another 30 years.
Dad may object. Ignore him.
Shared activities don’t necessarily require being in the same room.
Grandparents and grandchildren could:
It gives them something that’s theirs, rather than every conversation beginning with, “So… what have you been doing?”
Digital photos are brilliant for sharing quickly. The problem is that they’re also brilliant at disappearing.
You send a lovely photo. Grandma opens it. She smiles. She shows Grandad. Then somebody sends a message about what time they’re arriving on Saturday, another person shares a picture of their dinner, and before long that lovely photograph is somewhere underneath 73 messages and a GIF of a dancing cat.
So every now and then, take a favourite out of the phone.
Print it.
A photograph on the wall, beside the bed or on a shelf becomes part of the room. Grandparents don’t have to find the family WhatsApp group, remember which album it was saved to or locate their reading glasses before accidentally opening the weather app instead.
It’s just there.
And if you print and send photos every so often, they get to watch the grandchildren grow around their home.
This is important.
You do not need a beautifully coordinated professional family portrait where everybody is looking at the camera and nobody has yoghurt on their jumper.
Grandparents usually want the people, not the perfection.
The photo of all three grandchildren squashed together on the sofa can mean far more than the technically perfect photograph where everyone looks slightly uncomfortable.
We’ve talked about this before in our guide to getting a decent family photo without anyone storming off. Some of the best family photos happen when everyone stops trying quite so hard. The laughing, the messing about and the slightly chaotic moments are often the ones that actually feel like your family.
So don’t wait until you’ve captured the elusive photo where everyone is smiling, looking at the camera and behaving suspiciously well.
Pick the image that makes them smile.
Nobody needs to turn keeping in touch into another piece of family admin.
A five-minute call. A ridiculous photo from breakfast. A postcard. A drawing sent through the post. A story about what Mum was really like at school.
Small, regular bits of contact can keep grandparents involved in the lives of their grandchildren, even when they’re separated by miles.
And every so often, pick one of those moments and get it out of the phone.
Grandparents have walls too, you know.
