Communication Is Key

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Question: How do we keep communication strong with our tween Grandchildren, even when we are generations apart and live hundreds of miles away?

Answer: It’s a Zombie Apocalypse!  No, really, it is.

Certainly we are not a technologically challenged family.  We have had and used computers from the time that 8 GIGs took up half an office.  You could actually walk though the server columns.  My daughter remembers when the internet was DOS chat rooms.  Those days are definitely remnants of the past.  Now, you only have to buy a cell phone and activate the service and you can access the web from anywhere, emailing, blogging, surfing away your life. To think, we are only sixty years apart, but I never dreamed as a child that I could call someone without telephone wires, and my youngest grandchildren will probably never even know what a DVD or CD is, they will stream all their movies and music and might never carry a textbook if Apple gets it’s way.

That said, the cost of these services can be prohibitive, but most sixth graders have cell phones, and my grandson has an Iphone.  So my husband and I recently jumped into the world of Iphones too, and wow, are we ever amazed that we lived without them.

If you happen to have one of these phones, and you also happen to have a tween or teen that has one of these phones (or an Ipad or iPod, or a Droid) that has apps, this is your chance to connect with them every day.  Get a shared gaming app they play with their friends, like Zombie Farm or Words with Friends, and suggest that you two start-up a little friendly competition of your own.  Bonus points in Grandma-land:  you look cool, you look smart, and you get to beat the pants off the twelve-year-old!

If you are techno-shy, which I totally understand, all you have to do is:

1. Call your daughter or son and find out of your grandchild has one of these types of cell phones or devices
2. Write down which one it is (is it a Droid, and Ipad, an Iphone, etc)
3. Ask your grandchild to come to the phone and find out what his favorite app is (you can start with the biggies: Mafia Wars, Zombie Farm, Hanging with Friends, Words with Friends) – you may have to supply these suggestions if you have a grunter like I do: one grunt for yes I play it, two grunts for no.
4. Get their user name – this may be called a “gamer tag” in tween lingo, but you need this to invite them to a game.
5. Tell them you love them and miss them.
6.  Walk into a service provider (think Verizon, Apple, Sprint, T-mobile) and let them know you want to know what their rate plans are to allow you to download apps (and specifically to play the app your grandchild plays – from the grunted answer).
7. Pick the least expensive plan that meets your needs.  If you want bells and whistles, that is up to you, but don’t be fooled into having to have them.  If you only talk on a cell phone five hundred minutes a month do not buy unlimited talk for an extra $10.00 per month – by going the app play route, you will probably talk less because the grunts get shorter.
8. Have the guy at the store you choose set up your phone: transfer your numbers in, fix the ring to something you can stand, and download the apps you want for you.  They will do this if you ask. In fact, I like making them fix all my settings and do a tutorial at the same time, I hate trying to do set ups at home and I figure for the cost of these phones I should get a little TLC from the guy at the desk.
9. Open the app, set up you own gamer tag – something like “gramma rocks” “im gonna beat u bad” and shoot off an invite.

My grandson and I play both together – the free versions.  We love checking our farms for onion-head carrot arm creatures, debating the best way to grow a turnip arm-broccoli head zombie, and we love trying to best each other in a game of scrabble (I usually win, he is a twelve-year-old boy, after all).  This little game playing takes about ten minutes of my time a day, but it has really connected us through the distance in a way the texting and emailing and phone calls have not.  Sure, it is not the same as sitting around the table on family game night, but it is a far cry from the grunting and three-letter texts I get when I try to call.  And maybe one day he’ll scrabble me the name of the girl he’s dating or the college he hopes to get into.  If all it takes to connect with a tween is a Zombie Apocalypse, sign me up!

Related articles

• Grandparenting in the Digital Age (education.com)