How are you staying in touch with family?

All my grandchildren are young adults now. We keep in touch mainly on WhatsApp.

Yup, WhatsApp’s been a real gift. Especially sending pictures and videos.

Zoom, FB and messenger for me, plus telephone when required

Wattsapp, zoom and calls.
Family quizzes on zoom. Sending small surprise gifts.
With 5 year old Grandson, his Mummy has to follow him around as he likes to show us his toys and other things around the house.

WhatsApp for me too and FB and mobile chats sometimes. Thank goodness for the internet.

I’ve done a couple of treasure hunts and scavenger hunts for my DGS for them to do with their cousins over Zoom, having got their parents to lay a trail of clues/prizes in their homes beforehand. They went down well.

We set up subscriptions for comics so they’d have something delivered every week.

For Valentine’s Day, we’re sending each family a selection of marshmallows with toasting kits. We’ve saved some for us.

Whatsapp & Messenger for me from my older DGCs and a video call on Saturdays from my GGD when she tells me what she has done in Nursery during the week.

Our DGD likes to have the phone to herself and takes us up to her bedroom. She is only 5 and her parents always want to know what secrets she has been telling us.
We Zoom our DD and SiL - we even had Christmas dinner with them via Zoom.

We dont have a special time so its all a bit as and when. I have never been on zoom, but we do fb and messenger. Who is that the old crone i see on that screen. Surely it cant be me.
My gc are now 8 and 11 and the younger has never hung around to talk, now he gas found these silly faces or ears etc he just spends his time messing about. My gd is better, but its nowhere near as good as being together. We are being very careful as we are in an area with very high rates, so dont know how long that will be.

Thanks to daily FaceTime chats I see far more of my grandchildren now than I did before the arrival of the virus. I have three grandchildren under the age of four and calling granny has become a natural part of their day. One takes his phone to his dad with an instruction to call me as soon as he gets home from nursery and he chats to me about his day whilst showing me whichever plaything he has on the go. Another regularly chats to me at bath time and the third comes and goes when I’m chatting to his mummy.

The older grandchildren (Primary school age) are prolific readers and we enjoy chatting about what they’re reading and which books they’d like to read next.

Two of our children arrange a time to ‘meet’ with us on Zoom and we all get takeaways and share the meal together, and about twice a month my husband meets in the same way with our sons to play games online - currently it’s Battleships.

Recently the whole family got together on Zoom to celebrate our grandson’s 11th birthday - uncles, aunties, cousins, grandparents and great grandparents - it was such fun we’re doing it again for the next child’s birthday.

My 2 youngest grandchildren are 140 miles away. I am very fortunate to see them almost every day on video calls. Sometimes more than once a day, they might phone again if they want to show me something they’re doing.

I write to them weekly and post them little treats. They write little notes to me and post me their drawings. I put them on the wall and show them my gallery on FaceTime.

Also, a couple of evenings a week I read their bedtime stories when they’re tucked up in bed.

My 2 oldest grandchildren live 9 miles away. I live alone and would be within the guidelines to form an extended household with them and visit their home. But we’re going with the “just because it’s allowed it doesn’t mean it’s safe” approach. We meet up in a large park for walks and keep a safe distance.

I know I am fortunate to have the contact I do have with my GC and even in pre covid days so many grandparents are far apart from their’s. But oh how I yearn for a hug!

Phone calls every couple of days, WhatsApp, e mails sending each other little gifts like food hampers from M & S, flowers and in one case chocolate brazils as I had said I had a fancy for them.

My grandchildren have made videos of them doing two Joe Wickes exercise videos to motivate me to do these exercises daily. The chit chat and cries of “you can you do it grandma” makes me laugh and we now find each exercise video seems to last a much shorter time.

Online messages, Facetime calls, I send cards with photographs of me and DGS on them, yes, far far too many gifts. GS thinks he is getting something from Gaga everytime the postman walks past now, so I have had to rein that in a bit!

I see my daughter and the grandchildren every week as I pick up grandaughters maths homework from her school. Don't ask why it's only the maths, nobody knows.
We phone several times during the week. I sometimes phone the grandchildren to educate them into how to have a proper telephone conversation I tell them why I'm doing it but they find it funny.

We haven’t seen our daughter and Grandchildren for over a year, so we use Whereby for online chats and video chats, we also use it for a wider family evening once a month when we have a family quiz, next one is next week.

Between video chats we are sending old postcards to each other through the post, usually ones bought when we were on holidays years ago when it was expensive to buy film and then get photos developed, way before mobile phones.

WhatsApp, FB Messenger, Zoom, Teams for one member who uses it for work so doesn’t see the need to change, FaceTime, Phone family members on the frontline often use hands free to call on the journey to or from work to either vent their feelings or share news.
One DGD uses FaceTime to instruct me in application of make up! Younger ones WhatsApp me to help with maths or challenge me with drawing challenges.
Different DGS use videocalls to show me their dance skills, question my knowledge of history or share information about their latest focus. We use EdPlace to set and assess work.

WhatsApp and phone calls.
Not the same as face to face though.

FaceTime with little ones (5 and 8) about 3 nights a week - to hear them read / help with schoolwork or just chat. WhatsApp the teenage grandchildren, daughters, etc. Send postcards or little presents through the post sometimes. Wish it was all over!

I prepare their supper twice a week and provide a Nana Deliveroo service.. dropped at the doorstep. This way they engage with me about what they might like via WhatsApp. I send a daily message too
a DGC WhattsApp group. Aged 8 - 15

When it was the first lockdown I would FaceTime my grandchildren with a pretend virtual shop where I placed certain things in their sight for them to buy for example I would have chocolate biscuits for sale. I would tell them the cost and help them to do some mental arithmetic. We had great fun. Now I’ve got an app called Caribu where I can play interactive games. It too is great fun. Technology is brilliant

Zoom fortnightly with my siblings; whatsapp whenever with my offspring; postcards and cookie parcels with my grandkids.

We all hate phone calls except for "messages of purpose", to paraphrase what an Amish woman once said.

Baggs we are almost exactly the same... I don't Zoom with my siblings, we send WhatsApp audio messages back and forth.

Long aimless phone calls when people chunter on give me the heebie jeebies.

I just sent off a postcard to my grandson having used one of his drawings for the front picture, all done online. Sometimes technology is pret-ty cool.