You haven’t lived together since you were a teenager, but they’re coming to stay for a month. Here’s eight tips to ensure family bliss and that everyone’s still talking to each other when they board that return flight and you pop the champagne corks.
- Don’t have them come stay with you
- No, don’t cancel the visit. If you haven’t got a granny flat, consider a short-term rental if you can afford it. There are plenty of accounts of families falling out whilst staying together for weeks or months in cases. There are very few tales of arguments when all have the merciful luxury of their own space.
- Send them off together to do something new
- A new experience for the baby boomers can kill two birds with one stone. It will help expand their minds, giving you all something new to talk about and it will give you some time and space away from each other’s company of an intensity you have become unaccustomed to. Best to position the trip in the middle of the visit so get the most respite for all.
- Do something new with them
- Shared new experiences and adventures can bring you closer together. Get out of the house and avoid the going through the motions of dragging the tourists round the circuit of already seen attractions in your new country. Do something that’s novel to all that to or three generations of family can bond over and make lasting memories from.
- Do something new without them
- If you’ve gotten stuck in a routine or have been working to hard, use the visit as the catalyst you need to get away and do something different. Leave the parents to explore your hometown and check the boxes that you’ve already ticked and get away and do something unchecked on your own bucket list. As with 2 ‘Send them off together to do something new’ time this in the middle of the visit for maximum benefit.
- Turn the other cheek on the expertise
- It’s hard when your mother’s an economist, property expert and wildlife specialist. Especially when this has not manifested in any success in these fields, merely a plethora of misguided and misinformed comments with little basis in reality. Remember – past a certain age different equals inferior. You are unlikely to change minds by butting heads. Better for your visitors and your sanity to focus on something that can be changed – the subject.
- Use the babysitter/house sitter
- A big problem for those who have young children and hail from the other side of the world is finding trustworthy babysitters. With the kids being looked after by someone who loves them you can get out for that romantic dinner together or even weekend away, safe in the knowledge that your kids are getting optimum care.
- Enjoy the different dynamic
- Whilst a visit can feel concentrated when you’re together from dawn til dusk, families spread over to hemispheres spend time in a different way than ones who live close to each other. Parents are part of their grown-up children’s lives 24/7 and Grandparents can be part of their grandchildren’s lives 24/7. This can immensely increase intimacy when families are impacted by the long-term tyranny of distance.
- Avoid political/philosophical discussions
- If you were educated in the seventies or after you were conditioned to question. If you were educated in the sixties or before, you were conditioned not to dare to. Cut the crumblies some slack, they’re not gullible, just products of their environment like us – we were just more fortunate in our environment in an educational sense
