Nothing is more captivating than listening to a senior loved one's memories and stories. Seniors have many interesting stories, and adult children living with their senior parents need to engage them during the holiday for stories. Seniors have a wealth of stories about the family that their adult children can record before getting lost in time.
Luckily with modern technology, one doesn't need complicated equipment to record family stories from loved ones. Here 4 are ways to record holiday stories from senior relatives.
1. Email Questions
Does the loved one enjoy writing emails? One can send them questions through email weekly, which they can respond to. Many tools, such as StoryWorth, can help achieve it. It has several prewritten questions; one can still create questions and email them to senior relatives. They will send their replies through email, and one will receive and capture the senior loved one memory in written form. Through emails, one can share these memories later with other family members.
2. Take Videos
Instead of recording audio when capturing seniors' stories, an individual can use a smartphone to capture both the audio and video of senior loved ones narrating family stories and past generations during the holiday. If one doesn't have a smartphone, one can use a digital camera to record the stories, but most people have good phones capable of recording good audio and videos.
After recording, store the video in the cloud, which cannot be lost or damaged, unlike in a smartphone or tablet. Also, it is easier to access videos from the cloud anytime one wants and with their relatives. One can also generate hard copies, so they have tapes of loved ones sharing family stories for the future.
3. Record via Video Conference
Video conferences are common nowadays, even for senior citizens. Even miles apart, one can get video calls with their senior loved ones during the holiday. Do a virtual interview and ask them to recount family stories. One can ask them about their first job, wedding day, or parents and siblings. Most video conference programs enable one to record conversations as a video. One can later send the video to a transcriber to get a transcript and share it with relatives.
4. Find Old Family Photos
During the holiday, go through the old family photos and pick the treasured ones. Often family members have different photos with old memories that one may not be familiar with. Scan the photos and save digital copies of those photos. Record the names of the people in the photo, approximate year, and location. Seniors can assist in providing further details of the old photos and the stories behind them.
Then secure the photos on a website, cloud storage, or DVD. One can create a history movie featuring videos and old photos using applications such as iMovie. Additionally, one can make a photo album of family photos which they can distribute to other family members.
Conclusion
Family stories with senior citizens in Treasure Coast can be therapeutic. Adult children living with their loved ones in Salerno, Stuart, Jensen Beach, Port St. Lucie, Palm City, and Sebastian can contact Senior Helpers Treasure Coast for specialized in-home care services and other services that are tailored to meet your loved ones' needs. Contact Senior Helpers Treasure Coast today for more information.