My grandmother lived three states away for most of my childhood, and I was closer to her than I was to people I saw every day. I think about why that was, often, especially now that I’m watching the next generation of grandparents try to figure out the same thing.
It wasn’t that she was around constantly. It wasn’t that she gave us things. It was that she did a specific set of small things, year after year, that added up to a relationship that survived puberty and distance and college and adulthood.
She wrote letters. She remembered the name of my best friend in seventh grade. She didn’t get into it with my mother about my mother’s rules, even when she had opinions.
Watching grandparents now, the ones who actually have close relationships with their grandkids and the ones who don’t, the differences aren’t subtle. The close ones do certain things. The distant ones miss them. Here are eleven of them.
1. They respect the parents’ rules even when they disagree
This is the one almost everything else hangs on. A grandparent who undermines the parents—who sneaks the kid a cookie before dinner, who tells the kid not to mention something to mom, who relaxes the screen-time rule because she’s the grandma and she can—is making a choice that costs them access over time. The parents notice. The kids notice eventually, too.
The Gottman Institute’s take on grandparent boundaries is direct about this. The grandparents who maintain long-term closeness are the ones who treat the parents as the authority on their own kids, even when they think the parents are wrong. They might disagree privately with their adult child. They don’t undermine in front of the grandkid, and they don’t make the grandkid an ally against the parent.
It looks like a small thing in any given moment. Over the years, it’s the difference between being invited and being tolerated.
2. They show up consistently, not dramatically
There’s a kind of grandparent who plans the big trip, the Disneyland visit, the dramatic gift on the birthday, and treats those moments as the relationship. The kids enjoy them. But the kids don’t really know that grandparent.
The grandparents who actually get close show up in smaller, more regular ways. A weekly phone call. A card in the mail. A standing Sunday dinner.
Utah State Extension’s write-up of the closeness research points to Sara Moorman’s work at Boston College, which found that grandchildren with emotionally close ties to their grandparents are less likely to be depressed as adults.
What builds that kind of closeness is the steady contact, not the headline events.
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3. They learn what the kid actually likes and meet them there
A nine-year-old who’s into Minecraft will tell a grandparent everything about Minecraft if the grandparent asks real questions and remembers the answers.
A twelve-year-old who’s obsessed with a band will play their grandparent songs if the grandparent doesn’t roll their eyes.
The close grandparents do the work of learning the kid’s actual interests, not the interests they wish the kid had.
They watch the show. They read the book the kid is reading. They ask about the YouTuber by name.
It’s a small effort that signals, repeatedly, I’m interested in who you actually are.
4. They listen more than they talk
The grandparents who turn every visit into a monologue about their own childhood, or the news, or what their friend’s kid is doing, end up with grandkids who tune them out by twelve.
The grandparent who gets heard, in the long run, is the one who does the opposite. They ask questions and let the answers go where they go. They don’t rush to share a comparable story from their own life every time the kid mentions something. They let the kid be the main character.
5. They remember the small specifics
The name of the friend.
The teacher the kid doesn’t like.
The thing the kid is worried about at school.
The close grandparents keep track.
This isn’t about having a perfect memory. It’s about caring enough to write it down or pay attention. A grandparent who asks how did the thing with Maya go? two weeks after the kid mentioned it, is doing something that the kid will remember for thirty years.
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6. They communicate directly with the kid, not through the parent
A lot of grandparents, especially with older grandkids, route everything through the parent. The text comes to Mom. The question comes through Dad. The kid is a third party in their own relationship with their grandparent.
A grandparent who’s actually close to a tween or teen texts the kid directly, once the kid has a phone. They send the grandkid the article they thought of. They have their own conversations, their own running jokes, their own thing.
The parent doesn’t always know what they talked about. That’s how it should be.
7. They don’t force hugs
A grandparent who insists on a hug from a toddler who clearly doesn’t want one is teaching that kid that their no doesn’t matter to grandma.
It’s a small thing, but it lands.
A grandparent who’s earning the kid’s affection accepts the kid’s no. They wait until the kid comes to them. They don’t make a big deal out of refusals or perform hurt feelings. The kid registers, on some level that operates for years, that this person respects them.
8. They don’t load the relationship with guilt or obligation
You never call me anymore. I’m not going to be around forever. Your cousin came to visit last month.
The grandparents who use guilt to pull the grandkid closer almost always achieve the opposite. The kid learns that visiting grandma comes with an emotional tax, and they start budgeting accordingly.
A grandparent who actually keeps their grandkid close makes the relationship feel light. They’re glad when the kid shows up and don’t make the kid pay for the times they didn’t. They understand that obligation kills affection.
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9. They share their actual selves
There’s a “grandparent character” some older people slip into around their grandkids—a softened, simplified version of themselves that’s mostly about food and warmth and not much else.
The grandkids feel it. They love the grandparent but don’t really know them.
The grandparents who get close share their actual lives.
The work they used to do. The opinions they hold. The stories from when they were twenty that aren’t the sanitized greatest-hits version. They let the grandkid see them as a person, which is what makes the grandkid keep coming back.
10. They don’t criticize the kid’s parent in front of them
Kids absorb everything.
A grandparent who makes pointed comments about their adult child’s parenting, weight, choices, or career in front of the grandkid is teaching that kid two things: that grandparents aren’t safe, and that their parent isn’t fully respected here.
A grandparent who wants to stay welcome holds their tongue. If they have a real concern, they raise it with the parent privately. In front of the grandkid, they back up the parent. The kid learns that this is a place where the whole family is honored.
11. They don’t make every visit about food or treats
The kid who only comes over for ice cream is being trained to associate the relationship with what they get out of it. When the ice cream stops being interesting—which it does, around eleven or twelve—the visits start dropping off.
The grandparents who stay close build the relationship on other things. A shared project. A walk. A conversation.
The food is a backdrop, not the point. When the kid grows up, and the snacks no longer compel them, they keep coming back because the relationship was built on something that didn’t have an expiration date.
None of these things requires more time, money, or proximity than most grandparents have. They mostly require restraint—not undermining, not guilt-tripping, not performing, not making it about you. The grandparents who manage that restraint end up with grandchildren who choose them, year after year, into adulthood.
The ones who don’t end up with grandchildren who love them in the abstract and visit out of duty.
The difference, in any given moment, looks like nothing. Across thirty years, it looks like everything.
