If your preschooler lives close to her maternal or paternal grandparents, or other relatives, great! If she doesn’t, it can be hard to keep close relatives present in spirit, if not physically.

Here are some ways to keep those family bonds fresh:

1. Make a family tree chart in your child’s room, and paste pictures of grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. Keep the tree simple and uncluttered. Include only family members she’s met already.
2. If her grandparents don’t mind being called at odd hours, paste their pictures in a special address book just for her, and write their telephone numbers next to the names. She can call them whenever she feels like.
3. Place pictures of relatives liberally all over the house - in frames, on bulletin boards, the refrigerator.
4. Pore through family albums together.
5. Let her make her own special personalized album with all her favorite people. Ask her grandparents or uncles and aunts to write special messages to her in the album.
6. Take a large map of the country (or world) and paste pictures of family members at the places they are at. It’s easy for a child to understand why she can’t meet her relatives everyday when she sees exactly where they are on the map, and how far from her.
7. Take all her dolls and teddies and let her make “her family” out of them, assigning relatives’ names to each doll or toy.

Enjoy!