No matter who you are, and no matter what type of family you’re in – communication is key to maintaining strong bonds and relationships. However, opportunities sometimes separate families; older kids go away to college or university, adults have careers that may take them across the globe for weeks at a time and families now have the ability to travel like no other time in history. These life events, while exciting, can also make it more difficult for families to stay connected.
Fortunately, what we have going for us now is the ability to communicate wirelessly. Reliable, affordable cellular communication is crucial for families looking to keep in touch with each other, from school to work to on vacation, and beyond.
Our modern age affords us many freedoms and while that’s wonderful, it can also present unique challenges from staying on budget to ensuring families are still finding time to connect face-to-face.
Great news! There are ways to keep in touch without breaking the bank or without compromising coveted face time with your loved ones. Some fun ways to communicate with your family beyond group texts and hitting “like” on a post include:
Have a weekly in-person family meeting and use a group chat to drop items into the “agenda.” Points can be as simple as “The recycling bin is now in the garage instead of under sink” or larger, like planning the next vacation or discussing car privileges with a new teen driver. Out-of-town attendees can FaceTime or video chat in each week.
Start a meme or humour chain for a daily dose of laughter. This can be a fun way for parents and teens to communicate using the same tech language kids speak as a bridge to communication. Even if you’re arguing about who’s turn it is to put dishes away today, keep up the chain and allow yourself some levity.
Start a private family IG account to use as an online photo album for holidays and vacations, or even for just capturing a piece of the everyday. Maybe try a “picture a day” challenge for the year! Give everyone access with a shared password. Parents will love seeing what images kids put up, since what we think is a great memory isn’t always necessarily the same thing they’d choose.
What can get complicated - even with easily available wireless - is when everyone in the family has a separate plan with different providers, payment dates and data limitations…. It can get complicated quickly, and feels like a fulltime job just to manage it all. If you thought raising kids and teenagers in the modern age was hard enough, add the fact that many teens have twice the knowledge about tech that you do, but less than half the money.
But you can navigate wireless plans for everyone in your family easily with some help from TELUS.
TELUS allows you to customize family accounts under one account, so no more four different webpages bookmarked with accounts for four separate people! Every month you are rewarded with great savings and adding members to your account helps you save even more! It’s a win-win – something that almost never happens in parenting.
Whether you’re looking for a phone with the best camera to capture unforgettable family moments or the latest voice assistant capabilities to help you stay organized (and one step ahead of your kids), you can get every single phone for as little as $0 upfront with TELUS Easy Payment. And about this great camera: they are a boon not to be scoffed at. My kids take pictures to rival professionals at times, and our family air-play photo reels are to be envied!
Keep tabs on usage and manage data for individual plan members, set controls and safety for your children in ways that are age appropriate for them using the Data Manager tool. Plus, TELUS’ new Peace of Mind rate plans help you avoid those expensive overage charges that seem to hit often when you have teenagers. (I speak from experience on this one. My daughter once binged two seasons of a show on Netflix accidentally using DATA instead of our home wifi.
TELUS is fantastic at recognizing that family-forward services are needed and offer programs as customizable and unique as each family using them. No two families, no two kids, and no two partners have the same wireless needs.
One of the bonuses of our wireless world is that it helps facilitate and improve communication amongst families, and increasing connection is always a great thing. Tech changes rapidly, and so can families – but luckily, TELUS makes keeping in touch with each other easy.
Printer-friendly version