Every Sunday at ten, my son plants himself on the little green stool by the phone. He waits, knees pulled up, until the screen lights up with his grandparents’ faces. “Nana! Pop!” he shouts, and the conversation starts off the same way: he holds up his latest drawing, they hold up a rock or a feather from their walk, and then they tell him a short story about the object. It started about four months ago. My parents-in-law, who live six hours away, decided they wanted to be more involved in our three-year-old’s daily life. The result was a sweet little tradition: a Sunday morning video call with a theme.
I didn’t think much of it at first. I was just grateful they’d chosen a time when he wasn’t mid-meltdown. But over the weeks, I’ve watched it become something else entirely. On Saturday nights, he starts asking, “Call Nana tomorrow?” And when the phone rings, he actually sits still—for ten minutes at least, which might as well be an eternity for a toddler.
The structure of their call has settled into a rhythm. They greet him by name, ask about his week, and then produce a “surprise treasure” from their end of the camera: a pinecone, a weird-shaped potato, a photo of a cow they saw on their walk. They let him ask questions. Then they invite him to go find his own treasure to show them next week. That last prompt was my mother-in-law’s idea. “It gives him something to think about,” she told me. “And it teaches him to pay attention to the little things.”
She’s not wrong, but I’ve noticed it’s also doing something quieter and more important. The ritual is giving my son a framework for how stories work. There’s a beginning (greeting), a middle (the treasure and its story), and an end (his treasure plan for next week). He’s starting to anticipate what comes next. On a recent call, when Nana opened her mouth to describe her stone, he interrupted: “Is it gray? Did you find it by the big tree?” He remembered the details from a previous call. That’s not just cute—that’s memory consolidation, the kind of active recall that builds narrative skills.
As a former preschool teacher, I recognize what’s happening here. Children learn to tell stories by hearing them told, over and over, in predictable ways. The Sunday call has become a little laboratory for that. His grandparents aren’t lecturing him. They’re modeling a simple structure: an object, a description, a small event. He listens, asks questions, and sometimes retells their story to me afterward in his own fragmented way. “Nana found a rock. It was cold. She put it in her pocket.” That’s not just a memory—it’s a sequence. It’s cause and effect. It’s the beginning of his own narrative sense.
What I appreciate most is that none of this was planned. They didn’t read a parenting article or follow a curriculum. They just wanted a way to stay close to their grandson, so they turned a video call into a small ritual. That instinct—making a regular, shared experience—is more valuable than any educational app or scheduled “enrichment activity.” Young children thrive on routines they can predict and participate in. The repetition isn’t boring; it’s reassuring. It tells him, This is a thing we do. You belong to this.
I’ve also noticed the tradition has shifted something in our weekend mood. Sunday mornings used to be a scramble—breakfast, cleaning, trying to get out the door. Now there’s a natural anchor. The call buys me a few calm minutes, yes, but it also gives him a sense of ownership. He’s not just being dragged through the day; he has an appointment he’s excited about. That’s a wonderful, ordinary thing.
For parents whose own parents live far away, I think there’s a simple lesson in this. You don’t need elaborate setups or expensive gifts. A regular phone call or video chat with a small, recurring focus works. Pick something manageable: a weekly call where a grandparent shows a found object, tells a two-minute story about their own childhood, or reads the same book every time. The key is consistency and having a recognizable shape. Kids don’t need novelty; they need recurrence.
One small adjustment we made was creating a physical reminder of the call. I taped a simple calendar on the fridge, and my son puts a sticker on the Sunday square after we hang up. It wasn’t my idea—it came from a friend who had the same setup with her mom. It gives him a concrete way to grasp what “Sunday” means, and it lets him track the passage of time without abstract explanations. If you’re trying something similar, I’d suggest keeping it very short at first. Ten minutes is plenty. Longer just turns into the two of them wandering off or getting fussy. And let the child lead part of the call—showing a toy or a snack, even if it’s messy. The mess is less important than the feeling that he’s a participant, not a spectator.
Of course, it isn’t always golden. Some Sundays, he’s tired or cranky and wants nothing to do with the phone. We still try to sit down, but if it doesn’t work, we don’t force it. The tradition has to bend; it can’t become a chore. There were two weeks where he refused to even say hi. My parents-in-law handled it gracefully, chatting with me instead and closing with, “We’ll see you next Sunday.” The following week, he was back on the stool, showing them a new matchbox car. That flexibility matters more than the ritual itself.
I love how this little tradition has taken shape. It’s given my son a sense of connection to people he sees in person only a few times a year. It’s taught him to listen, to remember, and to look for stories in ordinary things. And it’s given me a window into what kind of relationship grandparents and grandchildren can build from a distance—not a perfect one, but a steady one. I don’t know how long it will last. Maybe he’ll outgrow it in a year, or maybe the calls will shift as he gets older and more able to talk. But for now, on Sunday mornings, the green stool comes out, and the phone rings, and we all take part in something sweet that didn’t need a plan to begin.
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