High-quality relationships with members of our extended families, research shows, greatly benefit our overall wellbeing.
Intergenerational relationships in which love, support, and advice are given have a crucially positive impact on people of all ages, but older adults have proven to be especially vulnerable to loneliness and social isolation — and are, as such, especially in need of social contacts with their relatives.
The need to keep your relationship with elderly relatives, whether your mom, dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, or anyone else strong becomes even more pressing once you realize that loneliness doesn't just temporarily make a person feel bad. It also increases their risk of depression, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.
Perhaps you're unable to visit your mom, dad, or other relative in a retirement home. Maybe you're choosing not to visit your older relative at their home because you are committed to reducing the risk of COVID-19. Maybe you and your relatives don't live in the same country, and the fact that international travel has suddenly become extremely complicated is making physical visits unfeasible.
As a (now fairly settled) global nomad, I've not shared the confines of a national border with my own extended family for about two decades now — and not all of them are proficient with the internet. I have some tips for you, and because you'll have heard "get them to install WhatsApp, Zoom, or Skype" already, I'll try something slightly different.
How to foster a healthy and fun long-distance relationship with elderly relatives who use the internet fairly well
If the relatives you're hoping to build a positive long-distance relationship — or virtual relationship, even though they live nearby — with are fairly proficient internet users, the world is your oyster. Relationship-boosting things my nuclear family has engaged in with elderly relatives who were either good at using the internet or had someone to help them include:
- The obvious ones, of course — emails, instant messages, voice chats, and video calls. But your spectrum of possibilities is a lot wider than the odd "check in to see how you're doing" kind of keeping in touch!
- Play online games, from chess to Minecraft, together. Play offline games, like charades, together through video call.
- If you're a family with children, ask your older relatives to "babysit" your kids while you work from home, cook, or read a book. They will cherish this time. Variations include helping children or teens with homework (which might include sharing their life experiences), or asking your kids to show their elderly relatives things that are important to them right now, from drawings to toys.
- If your elderly relative needs to feel useful to be happy, ask them for advice. This can be about emotional issues you're facing, or about practical things. My uncle helped me fix my washing machine from halfway across the world, for instance, and it made both of us very happy.
- Ask them about their day.
- Do some fun challenges together, like cooking the same meals, doing an online course, or getting in X amount of steps each day. Hold each other accountable.
Your time together doesn't have to be very long to be meaningful. Say hi in the morning and wish your relative good night. On the other hand, keeping voice calls running for hours doesn't force you to have deep conversations, either. Some elderly people feel comforted just hearing the sounds of you doing your cooking and humming to yourself — in this kind of call, it's almost like you're in the same house.
How to keep in touch with relatives who aren't so good with the internet (but have a connection)
Teach them how to use the internet more proficiently, if they'd like that and you can be patient, and then proceed to step one. If they live with others who are good with online tools, rely on their help. If you are very tech-savvy yourself, you could even (with your relative's permission, of course!) take remote control of their computer at certain times to help them out. If it's appropriate for the situation and you are able, connect with their neighbors or younger relatives to make communication easier.
Can you still have a good long-distance relationship with elderly relatives if they don't use the internet at all?
When I first moved abroad, the internet wasn't as widespread as it was today, and not all of my relatives used it. We kept in touch through international phone calls (much less expensive these days, I might add!), but also through long letters than were often part of parcels with little gifts. Knowing that there's a weekly phone call waiting can do a lot to alleviate loneliness — I can say this from experience, as those phone calls were my only connection to home in a world I was new to in those days.
Letters, on the other hand, are still fully functional even in this day and age, and I still have and love the letters I got from my grandparents back then. Something about this medium makes it easier to share deeper existential thoughts that go beyond "how are you?".
Build up a support network
Don't just keep in touch with your relatives, but with the people who are closest to them on an everyday basis, as well. When my elderly aunt (who has no children of her own and isn't married, as well as having strained relationships with the rest of the family) had a stroke in May, her neighbor found her and called the ambulance. She was also able to contact me and tell me what was happening, because my aunt had given her my phone number.
It made all the difference. Without this wider network in place, I wouldn't have known what was happening for days — but because it was there, I knew instantly and could speak to my aunt as soon as she was able to again. Now, this same neighbor helps my aunt with her daily tasks and keeps me up to date as well.
Both living in different countries and this pandemic call on us to develop novel ways of keeping in touch. This can be hard on those people who are used to — and crave — face-to-face interactions in which hugs are possible. With time, however, these other ways of interacting can absolutely foster very strong relationships that allow you to get to know each other in a whole new way.