Asma Balfaqih
Family and home
Grandparents far away
For many families living far from home, grandparents are mostly a voice on the phone. Children need more than short video calls in which everybody talks at once and nobody really listens.
What helped us was giving the conversation a small task. The children show something they have built or drawn, and the grandparents tell a story from their own childhood in return. This creates an exchange instead of a greeting.
In "A Surprise in Makkah" Maher and Zayd meet their grandparents again unexpectedly. I wrote that scene because I know how great the joy of children is when people from far away are suddenly close.