Video Calls With Grandchildren: What Works and What Irritates Everyone

The standard format — a scheduled half-hour call, everyone sitting in front of a camera, a small child asked how school was — is the one most families settle into and the one that works least well for anyone.

The problem is not the technology. It is that the format asks a child to do the thing they are worst at: sustained face-to-face conversation with no activity attached.

For a practical workplace perspective, Monitask explains employee time clock software and how it is used.

What does not work

Long calls. A four-year-old has a few minutes of interest in a face on a screen. After that you are both enduring it.

"How was school?" Produces "fine" at any age, in any medium.

Requiring the child to sit still. The most common source of frustration on both ends, and the parents are usually more uncomfortable than anyone.

Calling at a bad hour. Just before dinner, at bedtime, or in the middle of something. The call becomes an interruption the parents have to manage.

Everyone on one camera. Two adults leaning into frame at different distances, one of them mostly forehead.

What works

Short and frequent beats long and scheduled. Five minutes, twice a week, is better than forty minutes on a Sunday. The child stays interested and nobody has to perform.

Do something rather than talk. This is the whole trick.

• Read a book aloud. Hold it up. Ask them to turn the page by telling you when
• Play a guessing game — I spy works over video
• Draw the same thing at the same time and show each other
• Build something with whatever is in front of each of you
• Cook the same simple thing simultaneously
• Show them something. A tool, a plant, a bird outside the window, an old photograph

Let them lead. Older children will show you things — a game, a project, a pet — and that is a better call than an interview.

Let them leave. If a small child wanders off after four minutes, that was a successful call. Say goodbye cheerfully. It makes the next one easier.

Play alongside their parent. Younger children are often more comfortable when a parent is nearby doing something else, rather than supervising the conversation.

Making it practical for the parents

The people who decide whether these calls happen regularly are the parents in the middle, and their experience determines the frequency.

Ask what time actually works, and then use it. Not "any time is fine for us" — pick one.

Accept a shorter call gladly. A parent who knows the call takes five minutes will offer it more often than one who knows it takes forty.

Do not use the call to raise other topics. If it becomes the moment for a conversation about something else, it stops being casual and starts requiring preparation.

Send things between calls. A photo, a voice message, a short video of something. It keeps the connection alive without requiring anyone to schedule anything, and children respond to a voice message at their own pace.

The practical setup

You do not need equipment. A few things make a noticeable difference.

Light in front of you, not behind. A window behind you makes you a silhouette. Turning around fixes it.

Prop the device up rather than holding it. A stack of books works. Hand-held video is tiring to watch and moves constantly.

Camera roughly at eye level. A phone in your lap points up at the ceiling and at your chin.

Check your audio. Sound matters more than picture for a child's attention. If there is background noise, move.

Use whatever app the family already uses. This is worth more than any technical merit. The right platform is the one already on the parents' phone — asking a household to install something new for one call is a reliable way to reduce the number of calls.

For families spread across time zones

Agree a window rather than a time, and let the parents pick within it.

Use recorded messages for the gap. A short video from you, watched at breakfast, is often more valuable than a live call at an awkward hour — and a child can watch it repeatedly, which they do.

Do not chase. Calls that become an obligation get avoided. Calls that are easy get made.

The version that ages well

As grandchildren get older the format inverts. Teenagers rarely want a scheduled video call and will often reply to a message.

Follow their medium. A text, a photo, a comment on something they posted. It feels less like contact and it is contact.

Have something to talk about that is not them. Teenagers field enough questions about school and plans. A conversation about something you are doing, or something you are curious about, tends to go further.

The one change worth making

Shorten the calls and add an activity.

Nearly every complaint on both sides of this — the child who will not engage, the grandparent who feels the call was hard work, the parent who dreads arranging it — improves when the call becomes five minutes of doing something rather than half an hour of talking.

For additional public information on consumer fraud and scam prevention, see Federal Trade Commission.