If you have to travel to visit GPs what do you do while you;re there?

[ElderAve]

Is it a constant round of social events and outings or does life carry on a usual, the only difference being you're staying in their house?

I suspect for most it's somewhere in between, but teens are increasing complaining that they're "bored". What do they do, which isn't constant phone use and sure to get them told off by GF when staying away from home?

I've been a bit vague because it's not actually me but someone else complaining about how difficult visits home are for her teens. We had the same situation when I was a child and TBH I can't remember what we did to pass the time, I wondered what I could suggest.

We stay in a hotel near the city so we can have a break from each other. I refuse to stay with relatives because it's relentless, DD (10) gets incredibly bored and is expected to sit through several long boring meals where she's the only child and has to just listen to stories about random people none of us know.

So now we break up visits with dog walks, shopping, visits to attractions and meals out. I also let dd have her iPad for some of the visit.

Depends how long we're there:

• Treasure Trails
• cinema (Sat AM, usually an early showing), home via McDonalds for lunch usually does the trick.
• movie afternoon if not gone out. We buy popcorn & sweets and either bring a DVD from home or take our ChromeCast and stream/rent something new.
• Trip out. National Trust or a walk somewhere. Sometimes just a pub lunch breaks up the routine a bit. Sometimes just us, sometimes with the inlaws. Can just be into town. Our kids are younger so enjoy a ride on a double decker bus if we go in the summer!
• Our kids share a bedroom when at the inlaws, so they tend to just head up there for some device time. We are pretty free with devices when we're away from home. Out of sight, out of mind as far as at the GPs are concerned as they seem to forget they're upstairs on their devices and we have a nice adult chat downstairs. It's less like the kids are ignoring them.

We only stay for a maximum of two nights and we just do whatever the PIL have planned. Sometimes its nothing and we'll just stay in a chat, watch tv etc. Sometimes we'll visit other family or go out for the day with them. We just play it by ear, DD is 9 now and we've been going to stay for weekends every school holiday since she was a baby.

p.s. DD usually brings her tablet and will spend at least some of the time playing games or watching TV. Our PIL don't want her to be engaged constantly and are happy to let her do her own thing.

We only stay for 2 nights, we go into town or the local parks, cinema, the odd board game, kick a ball around in the garden. We recently got a dartboard put up in their garage which has been well used (my DCs are older). Lots of screen time too.

We are about 90mins away. We go down for the day (get on 9:30 train, come back on 6pm train). DS is young enough to like general playing with DM, she also has a piano, or he might play out in the garden or bake some fairy cakes with her. We have a picnic tea on the train home, which he loves. We do that once a month, DM comes to us the other three weeks (her preference).

If we go down for the weekend, it is basically more of the same but we’ll go out, either to a local steam railway, or woods, or the beach in decent weather. Two nights is our max. We do that maybe 4 times a year, Christmas, Easter, and usually twice over summer.

We are much less close to FIL even though he lives pretty close by - we meet him for lunch in a restaurant a couple of times a year, and go to his for the afternoon between Christmas and New Year.