Tips for maintaining a long distance relationship with grandparents

One of my favorite childhood memories was spending time with my grandparents and today I feel so grateful to God for that. Not only did I get to play with them, but I also heard new bedtime stories every night.

Only when little ones spend time with their grandmother and grandfather will they know that they act as referees, stress buffers, advocates, guardians, and roots of the family. The bond grandparents have with their grandchildren is a special emotional bond, one of a kind. The support that our parents receive from grandparents sometimes goes unnoticed and sometimes unappreciated.

So if you live away from your parents due to work or other reasons and your children somehow don’t have time to bond with their grandparents. Then the following are the tips on how you can help your children maintain a healthy long-distance relationship with their grandfather and grandmother.

Let’s get to them one by one.

1) Make your visits frequent
If you live in the same city, be sure to take your children to visit their grandma and grandpa more often, and if you live in another city or country, plan to visit them during summer vacations or long weekends. . Aside from this, you can also encourage your grandparents to plan visits or an extended stay at your home.

2) Technology makes staying in touch easier
With the advancement of technology keeping in touch has become very easy. You can have your kids make FaceTime, Skype or video calls with their grandma and grandpa by setting particular days and times in a week so that the kids have something to look forward to. In addition to these, children can exchange emails, pictures, voice memos (including bedtime stories and rhymes), or text messages with their grandma and grandpa.

3) Surprise them when they least expect it
Grandparents love to pamper their grandchildren. Every time they go to visit them, they make sure to surprise them with gifts. What you can do differently is instead of giving them away on the usual occasion, surprise them by sending them gifts in the mail from time to time. The best options to give are to send cookies, your favorite device, a collage of images or it can simply be a letter. This way they will feel more connected and loved.

4) More one-on-one communication
When grandchildren or grandparents visit, encourage your child to spend time alone with Grandma in the kitchen helping her while she prepares a family recipe, as this will help the conversation flow more freely.
Also, asking Grandpa to read stories will lead to meaningful, sometimes even enlightening, conversation.

5) Friendly relationship
Grandparents act as a bridge between parents and children. Parents are under a lot of pressure to do everything and make the children learn everything perfectly. The pressure to be the best parents comes from having your children learn to talk, walk, behave, etc. As grandparents, they can teach their grandchildren without the burden of being perfect at parenting. In this way, you can act as their friend and guide them to the right path at every right step, for example, in your hobbies, you teach them how to face competition and how to be positive.

last word:
Grandma and Grandpa have their experiences to tell in the form of stories. In addition, they are the storehouse of beautiful inspiring stories of life that no child should deny. So nostalgic, I feel right now! What is your strongest childhood memory of your grandparents?