Children need grandparents and grandparents need the joy and inspiration of being with their grandchildren. Grandparents can give children a valuable gift, time and attention.
Time together can be as simple as reading funny bedtime stories or playing together on the floor for hours. It also can mean long conversations or special trips together. But how are these fun family activities possible when hundreds or even thousands of miles separate the generations?
Creative parents and grandparents are finding new family ideas for keeping in touch.
Regular telephone calls are an obvious method. Long-distance phone rates are inexpensive enough to allow quality conversations without doing major damage to the fixed income of the grandparents.
Regular letters have worked for generations. Even when the children are too young to read, parents can read to them and then tuck the letters away for the future. Using a computer and scanner, letters can now include pictures and other graphics to make them more appealing to infants and toddlers.
Pictures of what the grandparents are doing now or photos from special times together are great additions. Grandchildren and grandparents alike will treasure these letters as the years go by.
E-mail letters and online chats work well for some families. Parents and older children will be very comfortable with this method of communication and using it sends a signal that the grandparents value their grandchildren’s world.
If travel is too difficult or too expensive, visit less often but for longer periods of time. Since motels are expensive and a house may not be large enough to fit two extra adults comfortably for very long, try to look for creative housing arrangements.
Parents can help by taking a little time to locate friends or friends of friends who are going to be away and would like having someone trustworthy house-sit for them. The use of a car can often be part of the arrangement. That way both generations can have privacy and ‘‘alone time,’’ while still spending a lot of time together.
Check airline websites, where ticket prices are posted and where searches often can locate discount fares.
Meeting one-on-one with a grandchild sends a message that the child is important. When your grandchildren are old enough, arrange to take an overnight trip together. Their grandparents’ undivided attention, even for a short period of time, is much more important to them than longer visits where they have to share attention with their parents.
An anonymous writer on cyberparent.com says, ‘‘Children expand time. One treasured memory can warm a child and then his adult self for a lifetime. This makes a very small period of time with you go a long way for each grandchild.’’
I have found it goes a long way and makes many treasured memories for the grandparents, too. Plan now, while your grandchild is small, to spend time together, no matter how many miles divide you.