Please tell me what you do on visits with your parents/PIL

[citizenkanye]

I'm trying to work out what would be reasonable, particularly on visits that last several days, and would really appreciate hearing the experiences of others about how you handle things. Especially:

How many 'activities' do you do a day for their benefit?

How do you decide where to go and what to do? How much say do you have over this?

Do you do everything together all the time, or do you have sections of the day where you do different things in different groups?

There is no set rule. My experience is that it's best to do all of these things but in moderation. Enjoy

I agree- do it all in moderation.

Just waved my parents off after a week visit (I live overseas so they tend to come for several days.) it went very well, I think.

We don't have any kind of set planned activities - if we ever see anything we think would be fun we might do it but we aren't terribly into time tabling. They don't need amusing...

We decide together. We carry on with our lives, work, appointments, they do anything they fancy and we work around each other. This time for example I had two midwife appointments and we met up after for coffee and cake in town. They wanted to go to Stockholm for a day trip so they went off and did that another day while we stayed home.

We don't have to spend 24/7 in each other's pockets (key for everyone's sanity, imho.)

I think I'm very lucky in that we can spend a day out together or just potter around or do separate things and they don't need to be amused constantly. That would drive me crazy.

What's their visitor style? Do they need to be shepherded around or can they just sort themselves out? Do they need activities every day or are they happy just hanging out?

Always had pil to visit for few days at a time. We continued our lives and they did their own thing during the day. They liked to walk have little naps and just Potter round. In the evening we had dinner and sat chatting. One day we usually went out to eat. They were ever independent so liked to do their own thing. When we visited them it was the same in reverse. We did shops locally and brought kids to interesting places. We all had dinner together and sat around chatting when dc were settled for the night. There were never issues as we all had space. Entertaining them all day would have driven me up the wall and we needed no entertainment from them as enjoyed doing our own thing in their neighbourhood.

I'd never have a visit to PIL that lasted days! Would go insane.

My mum comes to stay but she's v easy - we go to work, she's happy cooking, cleaning, doing the garden. We chat in the evening while watching TV, she's happy to make herself scarce occasionally, she and I will go out and do something on a Saturday without DH.

PILs would do none of that plus would require constant shepherding. And be upset if we weren't together 24/7. Especially MIL - while I'm sympathetic that she's lonely as FIL is a nightmare, she could talk to her actual son once in a while instead of glueing herself to my side. DH meanwhile tends to completely ignore her which makes me even crosser. So we go to theirs, stay over night, go out to dinner and come home. Or DH goes on his own. It works better this way