When experts recommend avoiding screens before the age of 3, they stress above all the importance of preserving motor, sensory, language and emotional stimulation, which is essential for a child’s development. However, the moderate use of digital tools such as video calls, with adequate supervision, can also meet these fundamental needs for relationship, interaction, language and emotion in the young child. Sharing a video call with grandparents who live far away makes it possible to establish a meaningful bond, stronger than a simple voice call since the prosody of the voice is accompanied by facial expressions. Eye contact is also of vital importance in building the emotional bond. In their parents’ arms, the toddler feels their joy in presenting them. At a distance as in person, it is indeed the parents who foster the relationship with the grandparents, thereby playing a key role in intergenerational dynamics.
If, up to the age of 3, parents need to actively support these video call interactions, they will gradually step back to make way for a more autonomous relationship. These moments can become regular rituals, set for a specific day and time and distinct from the times when adults talk to each other. Introducing a symbolic object, such as a soft toy or a puppet, can enrich these virtual meetings with the youngest, thereby strengthening the emotional bond. When they meet in person, this object can serve as a symbol of the continuing bond between the child and their grandparents.
The grandparents’ involvement is not limited to early childhood. Their creativity and complicity can last through shared activities, such as making “crafts”, building things or cooking challenges with the help of the parents. They can also read stories, encourage the child to share their experiences and emotions, and even take part (if it is a shared pleasure) in their schoolwork remotely, thereby contributing to the development of their learning autonomy.
Grandparents can also play a crucial role in educating about the dangers of the Internet, by encouraging conversations about online content and creating a space for dialogue without judgement. These intergenerational encounters contribute to building the child’s narrative identity and can even be enriched by using digital tools to create videos, scripts or simply exchange emails.
By offering appropriate space and support, grandparents, despite any apprehensions they may have about digital technology, can find many ways of enriching the relationship with their grandchildren. In this way they place future generations in a temporal continuity and contribute to their fulfilment, even at a distance and despite any cultural or linguistic differences. The crucial role of grandparents in intergenerational transmission can thus be made easier today by digital tools.
Thérèse Auzou-Caillemet
[1] Auzou-Caillemet T. L’école des parents Hors-série n° 4 Printemps 2023 La parentalité à l’ère du numérique
