Ideas for making overseas grandparents feel more involved

[Anonymous]

One set of grandparents aren't able to visit regularly for a host of reasons (we visit as often as finances & vacation time allow), but want to be more involved and I'd like to help. We do Skype calls on weekends, but even those aren't every week due to major time differences & weekend schedules (busy not just on our end, but theirs as well) - so when they do happen, they're *long* calls and we have to sort of plan for it. I found a software that allows you to record your voice reading an e-book for children so the kid's can hear Grams read them a story. Any other ideas? The kids are too young for video games, but is there like a board game style interactive thing that a set of grandparents might get into with the kids? Or maybe a platform that hosts a series of activities for international family interaction? I'm sure we're not the first to face this situation and turn to technology for some assistance.

Thanks for any tips!

[Anonymous]

When my parents divorced, my dad and I did correspondence chess. When your kids are older, you can do that. But I bet you can do a version with any board game.

[Anonymous]

I would try to scale back expectations for skype calls so you can do them more frequently. If you have some known times that might work and that happens to be a time it would be good to skype even for 15 minutes, that will help with the day-to-day.

Videos help too. You could have them each read a book while the other video tapes so your kids could watch. They'll know who it is.

DH travels a good bit, so I'm going off that.

[Anonymous]

My family isn't overseas, but several hours away. My 3 year old likes to email them or send postcards - he dictates the text, and decorates the cards. He likes to get mail back from them - sometimes with a funny story that I can read to him as a bedtime story, or just notes about their day. We make a whole activity of it - making the card then walking to the post office to get a stamp and mail it.

[Anonymous]

Do your parents have smart phones? There are 'chatting' apps, biggest one called Whatsapp, that my parents, my sibling and I (spread across 2 countries, 3 cities) have on our phones. We have a 'group chatting room' where we chat, send photos and videos. It is a lot more conducive to group conversations than email or text message - I think it's the format. No one responds in 'real time' due to time dfference & being busy, but the conversations take place continuously over the course of days so we know what each other is up to.