Almost no contact with adult grandchildren

The only time usually my Adult children see their Grandparents (the ones still living) are if I organise get togethers. Most of the time the problem is distance as we live hundreds of miles away from each other except for us and our youngest DD and her family who live in the same town as us.

Last year we did a big family holiday which I organised to include the octagenarians and the small GC and to be honest it was a nightmare with both the youngest and the oldest needing a lot of assistance and organising.

We use whats app to keep in touch and even my mum can use this. She is 83 this year.

Thanks everyone, you have all helped.

My children are 20 something graduates living in London, both having a great time. My mother is 92 and lives alone in the Midlands, we are 60's and live in the South West. Children only come "home" maybe 4-5 times a year, otherwise we visit them in London. We make sure that there are arrangements in place for them to see my mother at Christmas time and for her birthday, otherwise they just have a chat on the phone from time to time. I think if there is a bit of structure to the arrangements they work better than just letting months go by and nothing being sorted out.

I think the modern world is different from years ago regarding where people live. Years ago families tended to live in the same area and it was easy to keep in touch. Nowadays, people move away for work. My children do not live locally and I have moved away from my home town.

Also, people used to have more children years ago so there must have often been far more grandchildren per couple. Very likely, two or three of them would have kept in close contact and it might not have been so noticeable if several others weren't seen or heard of for a while.

If I were you, I wouldn't make too much fuss. I'd touch base with them once a week and no more. If they don't hear from you, it might just galvanise them into action and they may contact you.

My children have no grandparents but my youngest Son's Gf does quite a lot with her Nan, taking her shopping once a week, phones for a chat most days etc but it seems the more she does the more her Nan expects. She keeps saying she's lonely but has a really active social life with all her clubs etc. It seems her evenings are when she feels it most when everyone is busy with their own lives. Twice lately they have been manipulated into changing their plans because Nan is lonely, so Nan spent the whole day here but apart from a bar b q all she did was watch tv and fall asleep. I offered to stay with her but no it had to be them as she didn't want to put me out. I can't go anywhere anyway as I'm on crutches so hardly putting me out. I'm at a loss as to what to suggest to them but she's pushing them away with the demands on their time. His GF has already said she's going to be less available which is sad but I can see it from both sides. I think in the OP's case I'd just back off a bit, as you say your son rings a lot why not after a while just come out and say how nice it would be to meet up from time to time and see what happens. A bit of honesty can go a long way.

I to found this hard ,I had my grandchildren every weekend and we had such fun! Making things,nature walks,stories ,my granddaughter Molly always wanted me to go girls shopping with me,and we had fun trying to on hats,make up ,getting samples and looking at clothes,and on her birthday she wanted me to go out shopping with her,and one year she said she was going with a friend,I said that's brilliant ,went home shut the door and howled!!! Since then I rarely see them ,they are 16 and 17 now,they both say I'm the best fun nan ever,which is lovely,but I long to see them so much,

Of course so many grandparent s do not have what I have had,I saw them both born and love them so dearly,I had a birthday last week and thought I might get a card ,but I didn't ,I even joined Facebook to say hello to them but they never answer
It does make me feel a bit empty,it's gone from seei them a lot to nothing and it happened so quickly.

I have come to the conclusion that getting older does bring in its train a series of losses. The best way of dealing with this is acceptance and having new things up your sleeve to bring you happiness in the next phase of your life.

We haven't always lived very close to them, but we have always had at least one (often more) family holiday a year with my parents-in-law and always got together with them at birthdays and Christmases. As a consequence our children have grown up seeing a lot of their grandparents and the big occasions in their lives (e.g. graduation, weddings) have all included their grandparents. Once they got to be teenagers my children and parents-in-law began to arrange their own meetings outside of big family events and this has continued. My father-in-law goes sailing with my youngest son and attends financial seminars with my oldest; my mother-in-law goes shopping with my youngest daughter and I think at some stage all of my children have been on holiday post-teens with their grandparents.
Relationships can't be forced and young people need time to spread their wings - but the love invested in them when they were younger will never be wasted and hopefully will be remembered with a fondness that eventually causes them to want to get in touch more often.