Keeping in touch with grandparents: ideas that work across the miles

Grandparents rarely want much. They want to hear about the swimming badge before it’s old news, see the gap where the front tooth used to be, and be told what happened at school in more detail than “nothing”. The trouble is distance, busy weeks and the fact that a seven-year-old on a video call mostly shows you the ceiling.

So here’s a toolkit rather than a list of things to buy: small rituals that stick, things grandchildren can make, options for grandparents who would rather not touch an app, ways to make the tech painless when they are willing, and a few gifts that keep the conversation going long after the wrapping paper has gone in the recycling.

Start with a ritual, not a gadget

The most reliable way to keep in touch is boring in the best possible way: the same thing, at the same time, every week. Kids thrive on routine, and so do grandparents, who will happily clear Sunday teatime for the rest of their lives if they know a call is coming.

• A fixed call slot. Pick a time that survives the school week and protect it. Ten minutes every Sunday beats an hour once a term. Give fidgety kids a job: show one thing they made this week, or ask one question.
• A shared book, read in instalments. Buy two copies of the same chapter book. Grandad reads a chapter aloud over video at bedtime, or the grandchild reads one to him. Stop on a cliffhanger and next week’s call is guaranteed.
• Question of the week. The grandchild asks one question per call: “What was your first job?”, “Did you ever get told off at school?”, “What did you have for tea when you were my age?”. Write the answers in a notebook. In a few years you have a family history that nobody had to sit down and write.
• Show and tell. One object each, every call. A conker, a medal, a wonky clay pot, a terrible drawing of the cat. Grandparents get a turn too, and their stuff is usually older and more interesting.
• Photo of the week. One photo to the family chat, same day each week, no caption required. Tiny effort, big reward.

Pro tip: If calls with little ones collapse into chaos, make them shorter and add a prop. A puppet, a “guess what’s in my hand” game or a song you always sing at the end gives the call a shape, and gives everyone a natural moment to say goodbye.

Things grandchildren can make and send

Gifts for grandparents from grandchildren don’t need to cost anything. The ones that end up on fridges and in drawers for decades are usually the homemade ones.

• Letters with questions in them. A letter that asks three questions gets a reply. “Have you still got the blue car? What is next door’s dog called? What’s your favourite pudding?”
• A drawing a month. Date the back of each one and they quietly become a timeline of the child growing up.
• A homemade calendar. Twelve drawings or photos, one per month, with every family birthday marked. Useful and sentimental at the same time, which is the grandparent sweet spot.
• A recorded song or poem. The nativity song, a poem learnt at school, a times tables chant performed with feeling. Send it as a voice note. It will be played more often than you’d think, and to more neighbours.
• A recipe cooked together, apart. Nan dictates her famous crumble over the phone, the grandchild bakes it, and a photo of the result (and the mess) goes back the same evening.
• A comic of the last visit. Four boxes: the drive there, the big lunch, the walk, the drive home. Speech bubbles optional, accuracy very optional.
• A game where they are the stars. Older grandchildren can help a parent build a little game, picking the jokes and writing the ending message themselves. More on that below.

Low-tech ideas for grandparents who don’t do apps

Some grandparents are perfectly happy with a landline and a book of stamps, and that’s fine. Keeping in touch isn’t a tech conversion programme.

• A notebook that travels. Post a cheap notebook back and forth. The grandchild writes a page and draws a picture, the grandparent replies on the next page and posts it back. After a year it’s a lovely object in its own right.
• Monthly photo prints. Print a handful of photos, write a line on the back of each and post them. Prints get stuck on fridges and shown to visitors in a way that photos on a phone never are.
• Postcards from days out. Even from the next town. Postcards are short, so kids actually finish them, and there are plenty of lines to borrow in what to write on a postcard.
• The same phone call, the same time. The weekly ritual works on any phone. Put the kids on speaker so everyone can chip in.
• Pre-addressed envelopes. Give grandparents a little pile of stamped envelopes already addressed to each grandchild. It removes the main reason people don’t write back.
• Bring the tech to them. If they won’t use a smartphone, show them things on yours when you visit. A game starring the grandkids played at their kitchen table still counts.

Making the tech easy: one link, big buttons, no passwords

When grandparents are willing to have a go, the trick is to remove every step that could go wrong. The usual culprits are passwords, app store accounts, updates, tiny buttons and “which app was it again?”.

1. One link, not five apps. Something that opens in the phone’s normal web browser from a single tap, with no download, account or password, is about as easy as tech gets.
2. A QR code printed in a card. Most modern phones scan a QR code just by pointing the camera at it. Print the code inside a birthday card with one line underneath: “Point your phone camera here and tap the link.” Nobody has to type a web address with their reading glasses on.
3. Put it on the home screen. Our games can be added to the home screen so they open like an app, from their own icon. Do it for them on your next visit and they’ll never need to find the link again.
4. Big buttons, simple controls. Choose things that work with one tap. The flappy flyer is literally one tap to flap, in the endless runner the character runs on their own so it’s mostly tap to jump, and the platformer has big on-screen touch controls on phones.
5. Set it up in person if you can. Ten minutes at their table beats an hour of “no, the other button” down the phone.
6. Write the instructions on paper. Three lines, big letters, tucked in the card or stuck to the fridge.

There’s much more on links, QR codes and big reveals in how to share your game.

Match the idea to their tech comfort

Every family has a range, from the grandparent who still has the phone book to the one who sends twelve voice notes before breakfast. Pick ideas from the right row.

Tech comfort	What works best	How to send things	If you’re sending a game
No smartphone, happy with the landline	Travelling notebook, letters, printed photos, a fixed weekly call	Post, or in person	Play it with them on your phone when you visit
Smartphone for calls and photos only	Voice notes, photo of the week, video calls with someone there to help	A QR code printed inside a card	Flappy flyer with a low win level, saved to their home screen
Comfortable on a tablet	Video calls, a shared book read over video, recorded songs	A link by text or email	Story climber of family milestones, steered by holding either side of the screen
Lives in the family group chat	All of the above, plus daily nonsense	A link in the family WhatsApp group	Any style, with a leaderboard battle against the grandchildren

A family game starring the grandchildren

Here’s a gift grandparents don’t see coming: a small game in which the grandchildren are cartoon characters, flapping, jumping or climbing their way to a message for Nan and Grandad. It plays in the browser on their phone or tablet, and every game has its own leaderboard, which is where the trouble starts. Grandad will not rest until he has beaten the eight-year-old.

How it comes together:

• A parent or guardian makes it. Children’s photos should only be uploaded by their parent or guardian, or with their permission. Under-13s can’t make an account, but they can sit beside you and choose everything.
• Try it first for free. You can build and preview as many games as you like with demo characters, no sign-up and no card. Turning your own photos into characters needs a plan.
• Pick an easy win level. The flappy flyer is 20 points by default and can go as low as 5. You want them to reach the ending and see the message, not give up at 3.
• Let the kids write the ending message. The pre-written jokes are there if you want them, but “We love you Grandma, please make the trifle at Christmas” beats anything a professional could write.
• Players pick who to play. On the character select screen, grandparents choose which grandchild to play as, which causes exactly the sort of row you’d hope for.

The sensible bit, briefly: the original photo is deleted as soon as the characters are made, and the game is unlisted, so only people with the link can play. It isn’t indexed by search engines and there are no trackers or cookies. Characters made from photos of children are always in family mode, so the jokes stay clean. Share it with family only, and delete the game whenever you like. Our parent’s guide to making a game starring your kids goes into more detail, and the full rules are in the acceptable use policy.

A story climber of family milestones

The story climber is the sentimental one. You jump upwards through a story, and milestones appear as you climb, each with a year and a caption. Waiting at the top: the family. For grandparents, it’s a family tree you can play.

You can use up to 12 milestones (6 by default). Something like this, with the grandparents as the climbers and the grandchildren waiting at the top:

• 1971: Met at a dance. Grandad claims he could dance. Witnesses disagree.
• 1974: The wedding. It rained. Nobody minded.
• 1977: First house, and the famously orange kitchen.
• 1979: Mum arrives. Sleep leaves.
• 1983: Uncle Tom arrives. The orange kitchen survives.
• 2014: First grandchild. Nan buys a second freezer.
• 2017: Second grandchild. Grandad learns to video call.
• 2024: Fifty years married. Still arguing about the thermostat.

Collect captions from the whole family beforehand; the best ones always come from the uncle you’d least expect. Optional cartoon memory scenes made from your photos are coming soon. For now, each milestone is a year and a caption, which turns out to be plenty to make people cry at a kitchen table.

Birthdays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and the rest of the year

Grandparents are easy to forget on days that technically belong to someone else. A few ways to make sure they’re not:

• Birthdays. A birthday game for grandparents with the cake smash ending. The flappy flyer tradition is to set the win level to their age, though for an 80th you might want to be kind. After the win it keeps going in endless mode, so the grandchildren can chase their score.
• Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Grannies are mums too. Try a Mother’s Day game for grandparents or a Father’s Day game for grandparents, using the Mother’s and Father’s Day look, where they dodge chores and laundry piles and collect tea, socks and flowers.
• Christmas. For the years you can’t all be together, a Christmas game for grandparents with naughty elves and mince pies.
• Thank you. After a summer of school holiday childcare, a thank-you game for grandparents is the least they deserve.

Editing and re-theming a game is free and instant, even after you’ve shared it, and the link stays the same. So the birthday game can turn into a Christmas game in December, and the icon on their home screen keeps working.

Ideas for grandparents to send back

Keeping in touch works both ways, and grandchildren love getting post as much as anyone.

• Answers to the question of the week, written down, so the grandchild can keep them.
• A bedtime story as a voice note, for the nights without a call.
• “When your mum was little” stories, with a photo from the album. Children find it hilarious that their parents were once small and badly behaved.
• A skill taught over video: knitting, card tricks, whistling, how to do a proper cartwheel (supervision recommended).
• Small things in the post: a pressed leaf from the garden, a comic strip from the paper, a fiver for the piggy bank.
• A playable postcard from their travels. Off on a coach trip? They could send a postcard from Llandudno starring themselves. For grandchildren living overseas, see a postcard from home for someone abroad.
• A game of their own. Grandparents can build a game starring themselves for the grandkids, with Grandad as the end boss in the platformer. If the grandchildren are in it too, ask their parents first.

Keep it small and keep it regular

You don’t need a grand plan. Pick one ritual (the Sunday call, the travelling notebook), one thing for the grandchildren to make this month, and one gift for the next big date. Do those reliably and the miles start to matter a lot less.

If you’re after more small gestures for people far away, try our miss you gift ideas. And if a game starring the grandchildren sounds like the sort of thing Nan would show the entire street, here’s how it works.