Bonding with Out-of-Town G-parents

Keeping Connected

By Amy Landsman

Edith Brotman’s two kids are very close to their grandparents. This is despite the fact that Brotman’s dad and stepmom live in Pittsburgh and her in-laws are outside Boston.

“Even when the kids were little, they always knew exactly who their grandparents were. There was a special connection,” Brotman, of Pikesville, says.

Sometimes, Brotman says, the grandparents visit Baltimore. Other times, Edith, her husband Daniel and their kids, 10-year-old Parker and Naomi, who is almost 7, do the traveling. Brotman believes it’s important for kids to get to know older relatives.

Sara Berman of Pikesville was thrilled when her father came to Baltimore this fall from his home in Israel for her son’s bris. She only wishes the visits could be more frequent.

“I would love it if I could go every year to Israel, but the tickets are high,” says Berman, a mother of five. “For two years my children didn’t see their grandfather. My sister (also in Israel), they haven’t seen her for four years. It’s hard, but at least they talk on the phone. That’s the way they keep in touch.”

Keeping in touch with far-flung grandparents, or any loved ones, can be hard. But there are lots of strategies and creative ideas families can use to strengthen the bond, whether it’s creating a family blog, making frequent phone calls, sending photos or videos, or just scheduling a visit.

The Phone Call
Unfortunately, for Pikesville mom Dawn LaPorte, who says that her three kids, Sydney, age 10, Zachary, 8, and 5-year-old Cooper, have a good relationship with her parents, who live in New Jersey, the phone calls just haven’t worked out that well.

“My kids aren’t very talkative on the phone,” LaPorte says. (LaPorte’s in-laws are much closer by. They live in Annapolis.)

There’s nothing worse than those long, awkward silences when grandma tries to talk to a young child on the phone. But if mom fills grandma in about what the child is up to beforehand, things should go a little better.

Grandparents have to recognize they have to find a way to be relevant in the lives of their grandchildren,” says clinical social worker Lisa Schkloven, who has a private practice in Pikesville. “Especially when they’re separated by distance. And the way they want to do that is to find out the things that are going on in their grandchildren’s lives that are important and are of interest to them… and discussing those things with their grandchildren.”

Schkloven says grandparents sometimes ask kids ‘How is school?’ or ‘Are you behaving?’ Unfortunately, those comments tend to be real conversation killers.

Kids “don’t want to talk about school necessarily, but if this is a soccer player the kid would probably love to talk about soccer. So finding out those things and asking those kinds of questions” help move the conversation along, Schkloven advises.

In fact, young children often clam up on the phone; plus, grandparents may have trouble hearing or understanding them. But even the youngest kids can still listen while the grandparents talk.

“Even babies can recognize intonation, inflections in voices, and get excited by voices,” Schkloven points out. “And over time as they develop into toddlers they start to recognize voices… 2-year-old Timmy can say ‘Hello’ and talk, but if you hold up a picture of grandma and grandpa while Timmy’s talking, Timmy’s going to start to make the connection between the voice that Timmy’s hearing and the picture that Timmy’s seeing.”

Even if your toddler doesn’t say much on the phone, Schkloven says go ahead and put him on anyway, so he can get used to his grandparents’ voices. (Those talking picture frames can also do the trick.)

For older children, grandparents can buy two subscriptions to a magazine, one for them and one for the grandchild, and then talk about the articles on the phone or by computer, Schkloven suggests.

Other forms of communication also work well — from family blogs to e-mails. Yet, Web cams have not proven too successful with LaPorte and Brotman.

Brotman says it’s a happy occasion when they can connect with the grandparents via web cam, but too often the system seems jinxed. “There have been rare occasions that we’ve gotten it to “she laughs. “The is actually the second web cam….our computers crash all the time!”
Personal Time
Sometimes, families without local grandparents can find themselves in frustrating situations.

Families with far-flung grandparents don’t have that built-in babysitter support. And those ‘Grandparent and Special Friend’ days at local schools can be a real problem.

“The kids definitely notice that their grandparents can’t volunteer at the school like a lot of their friends’ grandparents do,” notes LaPorte.

“I understand why they do them,” says Brotman. She says filling in for the grandparents is a pain in the neck, “especially when they are in preschool and you just want a couple of hours to yourself. You already did Parents’ Day.”

When far-flung grandparents do come for a visit, there can be a lot of pressure to make every minute special and exciting, to make up for that lost time.

AARP Maryland Senior State Director Joe DeMattos says everyone just needs to take a deep breath and relax.

“Sometimes it’s hard to remember that the pressure that we place on ourselves in situations such as these is artificial. Grandkids just love that extra hug and reaching into a grandparent’s pocket to see if there’s a lollipop or that quarter for tzedakah,” he says.

It’s the simple one-on-one activities that kids tend to appreciate most. Grandparents and grandchildren can bake cookies together, play checkers or board games, or put photos in a scrapbook. These fun activities will leave both generations with fond memories long after the visit comes to an end.

January 16, 2009