Tips for Keeping Older Family Members Connected During COVID
During this pandemic, the most at-risk demographic has been seniors. Due to this, many of them have confined themselves to their own homes. While this is great for staying safe, this disease has been around for well over a year now, making those trying to remain at home very disconnected from the outside world. Instead of risking their safety to rejoin the world around them, you should follow these tips for keeping older family members connected during COVID.
Teach Them To Use Social Media
If your elderly family members aren’t already on social media, this should be where you start. While the popularity of Facebook has declined in recent years, it’s still a great platform for families. Many people still post cute pictures or videos of their kids and talk about what they’ve been up to recently.
If you have a large family, grandparents might have trouble keeping up with everyone individually from home, so this will act as a resource for them to remain up to date on everyone. Just make sure they don’t overuse it because too much social media can be a bad thing.
Call or Video Chat With Them Regularly
Even though social media is a great starting point, you shouldn’t totally rely on it to stay connected. Calling older folks or teaching them to video chat should be used in tandem with media apps. These methods of communication have a more personal touch and allow you to connect with your loved one on a deeper level.
Plus, what kind of grandparents don’t enjoy watching their grandchildren play around on a video chat? This is as close as it can get for them to feel like they’re in the same room while staying safely at home.
Get Them a Device That They Can Use With Ease
If your family members are really old-school, they might not even have a device that they can video chat with. If that’s the case, you’ll need to get them one. The best choices for seniors are tablets and smartwatches. Tablets are great due to their larger size. This is best for looking at things that would be too hard to see on a smartphone, whereas smartwatches are a fantastic choice due to their ease of use and portability.
It doesn’t end at video chat, though. These devices can do plenty of other things for older people. For example, if you were to buy one of our GPS tracking watches for the elderly, your loved one could easily let you know where they are any time they go out. That way, you can rest easy knowing that they are still safe from catching COVID-19.
Find Them Other Ways To Connect With the Outside World
The feeling of disconnection isn’t only associated with families, sadly. Sometimes, a senior feels disjointed from the outside world. We hope that our final tip for keeping older family members connected during COVID will help with this issue. We suggest that you take the time to inform them of important issues going on when you can. It doesn’t always have to be about the pandemic, either.
If you can’t do this constantly, though, that’s okay. Just make sure they are using news sources that have accurate information. You can help customize their online feed to help sift out untrustworthy news sources.
