GUIDE

My grandmother is in her eighties and sticks to phone calls and email. Video calls and shared albums never reach her. How do we keep her in the kids' lives?

By the seenow! teamLast updated:

Meet her on the two channels she already uses. Have your school-age kids write her one short email a week with two or three photos attached, small enough to arrive as pictures rather than a download link. Then set a standing phone call where the kids tell her the stories behind those photos.

WHY

Why this happens

Most family photo sharing now assumes a smartphone and an app: a shared album, a group thread, a video call link. A great-grandmother in her eighties may have none of those set up, and may not want them. What she does have is a phone she has used for decades and an email address she checks. When the family's news only flows through the newer channels, she ends up hearing about the kids secondhand, if at all.

She is not out of step with her generation. AARP's 2026 research on grandparents found that older grandparents connect mainly through texting, email and phone calls, while those in their late thirties and forties lean on video calls. Phone calls are still the backbone for many families: in AARP's 2019 survey, 46% of grandparents said they talk with grandchildren by phone at least every couple of weeks.

Email has its own trap. When you attach a lot of photos or a video, the email can quietly turn into a link. Gmail swaps attachments over 25 MB for a Google Drive link, and Apple's Mail Drop sends large files as a link that expires after 30 days. For someone who opens her email to see pictures, a link to sign in somewhere or download a file may be exactly what she skips.

HOW TO

What you can do starting today

  1. Make the kids her pen palsNo app needed

    Elementary-age kids can write a short email with a little help: three sentences about their week and a question for her. Set it up as a weekly job, say Sunday afternoon, with a parent nearby to help with spelling and the send button. An email from a great-grandchild in their own words means more to her than a forwarded album, and the kids practice writing to a real reader.

  2. Attach two or three photos, not twentyNo app needed

    Keep each email well under Gmail's 25 MB limit so the photos arrive as attachments she can open, not as a Google Drive link. On iPhone, a big batch can trigger Mail Drop, which sends a link that expires after 30 days. Two or three photos the kids chose themselves is plenty, and it gives her something to ask about.

    Source: Gmail Help: Attachment size limits / Apple Support: Mail Drop limits

  3. Use the same subject line every weekNo app needed

    Pick one subject, like "Sunday letter from Emma and Jack," and keep it every week. She will learn to look for it, it is easy to find later, and she can tell your emails apart from anything she was not expecting.

  4. Set a standing phone call and prepare for itNo app needed

    Choose a regular time, such as after dinner on Wednesdays, and keep it short. Before the call, have each child pick one thing to tell her, ideally about a photo she already got that week, so she can follow along. Put the phone on speaker and let her ask questions. Kids this age do better with a topic than with "say hi to Grandma."

    Source: AARP: Tech Keeps Grandparents, Grandkids Connected (2019 Grandparents Today survey)

WITH SEENOW!

Doing it with seenow!

seenow! is a smartphone app for short family videos in private groups, so it will not reach her inbox or her phone line. It can help the rest of the family with one part of this routine.

  • If your household posts short clips on seenow!, the app makes a recap video of each week on its own. Watching it together on Sunday helps the kids remember what happened and pick what to write to her about.
  • You can keep a separate group for your household and another for relatives who do use smartphones, so the clips go only where you want.

What seenow! can’t do

  • seenow! does not send email or make phone calls, and she would need a smartphone and the app to see clips. For her, the emails and calls above are the main route.

POINT

Things to watch for in this situation

Let her choose her channels

It can be tempting to buy her a tablet and set up video calls. Ask first. If she says phone and email suit her, take that at face value and put your effort into making those channels richer.

Keep the kids' emails short

A long email can be hard to answer, and a child who has to write a page every week will start to dread it. A few sentences and one question keeps it going for years.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Why do my photos arrive as a link instead of pictures?

Your email was probably too large. Gmail turns attachments over 25 MB into a Google Drive link, and Apple's Mail Drop sends large files as a link that expires after 30 days. Send fewer photos per email.

How often should the kids call their great-grandmother?

There is no rule. A regular time each week or two is easier to keep than calls whenever someone remembers. In AARP's 2019 survey, 46% of grandparents talked with grandchildren by phone at least every couple of weeks.