Ideas for long-distance grandparenting

Although long-distance grandparenting is easier in today's electronic world, it's still hard when our legacy lives hundreds or thousands of miles away. E-mails and web cameras are great, but there's nothing like one-on-one visiting with those we love.

I've thought about long-distance grandparenting since I read the comments to last week's Tuesday's Thought , "The Babysitting Investment." So today, I thought we'd focus today on ideas to enrich those so important long-distance relationship!

Let's begin with a comment that Rita made about "The Babysitting Investment" :

"With seventeen grandchildren, we were busy all year remembering birthdays and holidays. Often, we’d send photos of them taken on our last visit or a drawing with a made up story.

Thanks, Rita! Those are some great ideas! Now, let's have a little fun with them:

Take pictures with the grandkids when you visit them or when they visit you. Then mail (or e-mail) the grands the pictures. For an extra touch, you or I could send the pictures with a letter reminiscing about our time with the grands. Or, we could put the pictures in a magnetic frame (that can be displayed on the refrigerator) before dropping them in the mail. We may also want to have a matching photo displayed on our fridge.

Draw a picture of something we did with our grandchild when he/she visited. For the artistically challenged, like me, we could have fun with the drawing by asking our grandchild (over the phone) to answer questions about it until he/she correctly guesses what the picture represents.

It might be fun to ask our grands to also write stories about their visit and compare their stories to to ours.

We could record a made-up story for our grandchild—using his/her name and places that we visited together. For very young children, we could ring a bell at the end of each page.

Here's another idea:

Pizza's on Pops Once Pops and I ordered pizza for our son and his kids who lived what seemed like millions of miles from us. We paid for the pizzas with a credit card and had them delivered to their house. Our children and grandkids thought that was a really special treat.

What are some things that you do to connect with your long-distance grandkids?

Have a great weekend!

He is able,
Mary
http://www.marymaywrites.com/
http://grandconnection.com/

© Mary May Larmoyeux. All rights reserved.