To find it hard to connect with my niece and nephew?

[smazin]

Our family are from a small village, former cotton factory area in Lancs. I'm a support worker and dh was a brickie.

I have one sibling who left the village to go to the big lights in Manchester where she went to uni and married another professional. Her kids, my niece and nephew, are now young adults. They both live in London and earn a lot of money. Both went to good schools in Manny and then both to Cambridge uni.

We only really see them at Christmas when they drive up from the city and come see us. They're lovely people and I saw them all growing up - but now I find it hard to connect with them? They live in completely different worlds

Well, do you only see them at Christmas? If so, it’s hardly surprising you’re not close? On their education etc — my parents aren’t fully literate, my dad was a bin man and my mother a cleaner, I went to Oxford, am an academic and spent years living overseas. I’m the same person I always was.

The problem is presumably that the neice and nephew have never been those people so haven't changed, are just very different

I have something slightly similar in my extended family, for short periods do you not have any common ground OP that you could talk about?

Find something they like and then talk about it a lot. Films, sport, walking in nature, tv programmes, books, nature.

Also if they come over, plan things to do straight away - eg they arrive and you go out for a walk. This can help get conversation flowing better because it can be connected to what’s around.

People love talking about themselves so ask questions, but if you can connect it to something positive- it’s a double win, like: What are you excited about this year? Where was the best place you travelled? If someone was coming to your area, what is a secret gem, they should visit?

Also a winning question for me is - what is your favourite breakfast and then you get them to break down into minute detail what makes it so good. For some reason, people love this!! Maybe because it’s personal but not too personal.

Instead of giving yourself the mental barrier that they are so different see yourself as a ‘relationship miner’ finding out where your points of connection are and finding out how they live’. It sounds silly but ‘gamifying curiosity’ makes it more lighthearted for you and will give you better outcome.

Unfortunately, when you get good at asking these sorts of questions you will realise how few people ask you anything ever…so give a lot and expect a little, is my other bit of advice.

But I don’t think you really are the same person @LongBreath. In the sense that you’ve had experiences you wouldn’t have had, if you had stayed in the same village and not had the opportunities your education afforded you. You might be the same person underneath, but your different life has shaped you differently.

But I was always the person who thought ‘I want more than this’ and who had the stubbornness to stay in education long after anyone else in the family ever had, against considerable parental pressure. That’s not anything to do with my subsequent life. And I’m back for Christmas and just as usual with family.

Spend more time with them then. London isn’t a million miles away