While many families spend a lot of time together around the holidays, if you want your children to have a strong relationship with members of their extended family, particularly grandparents who may be in assisted living facilities, it’s vital that you put in effort to this goal outside of these holiday celebrations.
To help you see how this can be done, here are three tips for fostering a strong connection between your children and their grandparents.
Facilitate Them Spending Time Together
The best thing that you can do to help your children and their grandparents have the chance at a good relationship with one another is to ensure that they have ample time together.
For families that live close to grandparents, this can be easily facilitated. Whenever you have something going on in the kids’ lives, even if it’s just something small like a school choir concert or a sports game, let the grandparents know that this is taking place and invite them to come.
Additionally, whether you live close to grandparents or not, taking vacations together and spending some time together over consecutive days can also be a great way for strong bonds to form between these two generations. So if you haven’t taken a vacation either to visit grandparents or with grandparents in the last few years, this should be a top priority for the health and strength of the relationship between grandparents and grandkids.
Let Them Have A Different Relationship Than You Do Together
For many parents, it can be hard to allow your kids to be treated in a different way by your parents, especially if you feel like your children are being spoiled. And while it’s good to have boundaries about this, it’s also okay for your parents to have different relationships with your kids than you do.
If your parents sneak your kids an extra toy at Christmas or another bite of a dessert after dinner, let them have this moment together and recognize this for the relationship builder that it is rather than just a breaking of your rules.
Use Technology When You’re Apart
Not all grandparents live close to where their grandkids are. So when you can’t have your kids physically in the same space as their grandparents, what you can do is take advantage of technology so that they can still be in contact with one another.
If your parents struggle with technology, help them get their devices set up so that they can easily call or answer calls from their grandkids. This way, everyone can keep in touch and feel like no time has passed when you’re finally able to reunite in person.
If you want your kids to have a strong connection with their grandparents, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you learn how to best foster this.
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