Grandparents Boost Their Video Chat Skills to Connect With Grandchildren

"I definitely consider her to be my best friend,” Hoefling says. When Hoefling moved far away a few years ago, she taught her grandmother to use FaceTime.

It took a fair amount of coaching, but with positive feedback and tutorials, the two were able to video chat daily. Hoefling wanted to help other grandchildren and grandparents achieve the same experience.

Grandma's in the Phone is a sweet story about how young Mac and his grandma Patty stay in touch. But it also offers suggestions for making FaceTime or Zoom successful. Those include making sure the camera is pointed at Grandma's face (and not the ceiling fan) and finding activities, like baking cookies, to do together virtually.

Making Zoom meaningful

For Horatio, those activities meant interactive conversations with the Kelleys. “He wanted tours of our house, to see his bedroom,” says Tami. But soon, the couple realized that to keep his attention long enough for his parents to get some work done, they'd need to switch up the routine.

"We played Candyland,” Dave says. With Horatio's iPad pointed at the game board, the boy would move the pieces for all three.

Patty and Bill Bundy, both 70, of Smith Mountain, Virginia, have found similar game-based success with their three grandchildren, Hampton, 9, and William, 7, who live in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Grace, 4, who lives in Birmingham, Alabama.

"At first I sent my older two microscopes,” says Patty, a marriage and family therapist. They could all discuss the slides of bugs and critters the children were viewing under the eyepiece.

But the real win, says Bill, a retired investment banker, was when the couple started mailing their grandkids puzzles. “Whenever Grace would get a piece and fit it in, we'd all clap and be proud,” he says.

The key with all of their grandchildren, but especially the older two, the Bundys say, was to avoid asking vague questions. “I was not going to sit here and say, ‘Now what did you do today?’ No kid wants to sit through that,” Patty says. Instead, finding specific topics, like Hampton's room remodel or the sports stations William sets up outside and then shows off via video, keep the conversation moving.

The Bundys admit they're lucky to have older grandkids who are digitally savvy. “We let them initiate the calls,” Patty says. But the grandparents have pushed themselves to become comfortable with the various videoconference apps because, Patty says, it's worth the effort to learn them so calls go smoothly.

Without video chatting, “we would have spent six months here with what?” she asks. “Getting a postcard every now and then?"

Bill says the ability to see his grandchildren and communicate on video has helped ease the separation caused by the pandemic. “Things like hugging them and being there with them, you miss those kinds of things, but this has made it tolerable,” he says.

For grandparents like the Bundys, the challenges of using video tools don't outweigh the joy of that connection with their grandchildren. “If there's a downside,” Patty says, “it's hanging up.”