Video calls with grandparents abroad for toddlers: how to make them work (ages 1 to 5)

Toddlers get the most from a call with a grandparent when it is short, at the same time each week, built around one shared thing such as a book, a song or a toy, and when a parent sits beside the child and helps. What matters is that someone answers. In the studies we read, young children learned from a person on a video call because that person responded to them, and, in the studies of one- and two-year-olds we read, learned much less from a recording of the same person.Live calls are the one kind of screen use that American and Canadian paediatric guidance makes an exception for. A recorded video is not part of that exception. Below we go through what helps at each age, what the research shows and what it does not, and what to do across a time-zone gap. Azizan (azizan.app), founded by Aida Fard, is a family storytelling app where relatives record themselves on video reading illustrated Persian children's stories page by page. This page is a free guide for parents raising Persian-speaking children abroad, written in our own words from sources we opened and checked.

Azizan (azizan.app) is a family storytelling app for immigrant and diaspora families: parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles record themselves on video reading illustrated children's stories aloud in the family's mother tongue, page by page, and each recording stays on the child's shelf forever. Real family voices — never AI narration. Persian (Farsi) first.

Why toddlers struggle on a call

If a grandmother calls and gets thirty seconds of attention before the child wanders off, that is normal. A call asks a lot of a small child. The person on the screen is flat and small, the sound lags, and the camera sits above the screen, so the grandparent never quite looks the child in the eye. The ZERO TO THREE review of the research adds that sharing attention with someone, looking where they look, is still developing through the second year, and a screen makes it harder.

So with a toddler, the adults do most of the work. The grandparent answers whatever the child does, and the parent sits beside the child and turns the call into something the child can follow.

What the research says, and what it does not

Four studies come up again and again, one of them with a companion study. Each one is a single lab study, so none of them is a rule for every family.

Myers and colleagues (Developmental Science, 2017). Toddlers aged one to two either had live FaceTime chats with a new adult or watched recordings of the same adult doing the same things. Children on live calls recognised the adult afterwards, preferred her to a stranger and learned more of the new patterns; the older toddlers also learned the new words. Children who watched recordings did not. The benefit appeared from about 17 months; the youngest children did not learn from either.
Roseberry, Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff (Child Development, 2014). Two-year-olds learned new verbs from a person in the room and from the same person over video chat, but not from a video of that person teaching another child. What mattered was whether the adult responded to this child.
Troseth and colleagues (Frontiers in Psychology, 2018). For two-year-olds, an adult physically present in the room mattered more than how responsive the person on the screen was. Children in that study did not learn the new words from video, even responsive video. A companion study (Strouse and colleagues, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2018) found that toddlers learned most when a parent watching beside them joined in.
Gaudreau and colleagues (Frontiers in Psychology, 2020). Four-year-olds understood a picture book read to them over video chat as well as one read in person. The same study found that a prerecorded reading worked as well as the live one for four-year-olds. The Canadian Paediatric Society cites this study in its 2022 statement.

Read together: a person who answers the child helps (Myers, Roseberry), but for two-year-olds a responsive screen alone may not be enough, and an adult beside the child helps most (Troseth, Strouse). None of them says a call replaces a visit or gives an ideal call length, and they say little about babies under about 17 months, except that babies respond to, and smile at, a live partner on screen.

What helps, age by age

Same time, short, often. The AAP advises a consistent time for calls; the ZERO TO THREE review suggests shorter, more frequent video chats for young children, because they forget what they learn from a screen faster. A few minutes at breakfast twice a week beats an hour on Sunday that ends in tears.
A parent beside the child, every time. Point at the screen, name what the grandparent is doing, and pass on what the child is showing: "she's showing you her shoes." Tell the grandparent what the child can and cannot see. Of everything on this list, this is the step the research supports most clearly.
One shared thing per call. A book both sides hold, a song with hand movements, peek-a-boo, a snack eaten together, a toy held up to the camera. Ask the grandparent to show where they are: the kitchen, the window, the cat.
The grandparent answers, and waits. Repeat what the child says and add a word. Ask a question, then actually wait. In the Myers and Roseberry studies, this back-and-forth is what made the difference.
No television in the background. The AAP says to keep the room quiet so the child is not watching two screens.
Make dropped connections a game. When the picture freezes, play peek-a-boo with it and cheer when it comes back. Tell the child what happened rather than pretending nothing did.

Under about 18 months, the call is mostly for the grandparent to see the baby and for the baby to hear a familiar voice. Think of it as relationship time. From about 18 months to 3, songs, finger games and short books work best, with the parent doing most of the relaying. From 3 to 5, the child can take a turn: show a drawing, answer a question about the story, ask the grandparent one back.

Reading a book together over a call

A book is the easiest shared activity to plan. Send or buy two copies, one on each side, so the child can turn the pages while the grandparent reads. The grandparent reads a page, stops, and asks about the picture; the parent helps the child point and answer. The Gaudreau study used exactly this kind of question-and-answer reading, and its authors suggest that a reader who learns the child's interests over several calls could tailor the story in a way a recording cannot.

For a Persian-speaking family, the call is also where the grandparent's Persian lands best, in a real exchange with the child's name in it. Read the same book across several calls. Small children like hearing one story many times, and repetition is how the words stick.

When the time zones make a live call impossible

Tehran, Kabul or Dushanbe and Vancouver are roughly ten and a half to thirteen hours apart, so a toddler's bedtime falls at the grandparent's dawn. The easy overlap is the toddler's morning, which is the grandparent's evening, and family mornings are often too rushed for a call. Some families turn to recorded messages instead: a voice note, a short video, or a recorded story the child can play later. It helps to be clear about what that is. A recording cannot answer, so it is not the live, interactive video chat that the AAP and the Canadian Paediatric Society exempt. We know of no paediatric body that has endorsed recorded family video. In the studies of one- and two-year-olds we read, toddlers learned less from a recording than from the same person live.

A recording still has its place, but it is screen time and the usual rules apply. Count it inside the daily limit, watch it with the child and talk about who is on the screen, and keep it out of the hour before bed. Use it to fill the days between calls, not to replace them. Azizan is one way to do this: a grandparent records an illustrated Persian story page by page, and the child watches it with a parent. Our toddler screen time page sets out the guideline figures, and how to record a story video for grandchildren covers the recording itself.

Related guides

Questions

How long should a video call with a toddler be?

No study we read gives an ideal length. The AAP advises a consistent time, and the ZERO TO THREE research review suggests shorter, more frequent video chats for young children, because they forget what they learn from a screen faster. Stop while the child is still enjoying it.

Can toddlers learn words from video chat with grandparents?

Several lab studies say yes, if the person on the call responds to the child. Myers and colleagues found that toddlers from about 17 months learned from live FaceTime chats but not from recordings, and Roseberry and colleagues found that two-year-olds learned new verbs over video chat but not from a non-responsive video. For two-year-olds, an adult beside the child seems to matter most: Strouse and colleagues found toddlers learned most when a parent watching beside them joined in.

Does video chatting with grandparents count as screen time?

The American Academy of Pediatrics calls it relationship time rather than screen time, and the Canadian Paediatric Society exempts video-chatting with caring adults from its no-screens advice for children under two. That exception is for live, interactive calls.

Is a recorded video message from grandma as good as a live call?

Not for learning, in the studies of one- and two-year-olds we read: toddlers learned less from a recording than from the same person live, because a recording cannot answer. We know of no paediatric body that has endorsed recorded family video. A recording can fill the gap between calls; count it as screen time and watch it together.

My toddler walks away during calls. What should we do?

Make the call shorter and give it one shared activity, such as a song or a book both sides hold. Sit beside the child, point at the screen and pass on what each side is doing. Let the child wander off and come back. The grandparent can keep talking to the room.

Open Azizan — record a story for your child

Updated: 2026-11-03 · By Aida Fard

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