Sending messages between child and parent widows with react

I have in the parent window the following code:

<form action='' name={'commForm'} >
 <input type='text' id='windowToClose' onChange={windowToCloseChanged} value={jobToClose} />
</form>

I also tried onChange={(e)=> windowToCloseChanged(e)} and the method :

 const windowToCloseChanged = (e): void => { 
    console.log(e.target.value);
  };

in the child window I have the code:

opener.document.commForm.windowToClose.value = 'W' + dpcRequest.ProjJob;

When the child code runs, I can see the input field populate with the text but the on change method never gets executed. What am I missing for the "windowToCloseChanged" to run? Thank you