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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. Kids are in school, of course. My parents have a lot of disposable income and will park at a hotel for a week, even more, and more or less sit around waiting to see the kids. My mother is laser-focused on seeing them but she wants it on her terms, i.e. sit at our house or in their hotel room. The kids do not enjoy this. She feels that because they showed up, I should be accommodating them and drop the kids off with her all week or let them park in our living room from 4 pm until the late evening. I've said no many times and yet she keeps doing things her way. They do this about once every other month. As soon as they leave, she's planning another visit. We've gone to see them as well but it's the same thing there. Just sitting around the livingroom. [/quote]

My solution is that when my parents or my late MIL would come to visit, we would reserve the first 2-3 days to do activities with them.  After that, we returned to the normal schedule and grandparents got to see the kids when they were available or tag along to activities.  My mother and MIL both enjoyed coming to skating lessons and watching them skate or coming and sitting with me on the sidelines of soccer practice, chat with me and watch the kids.  Then talk to the kids in the car to and from and at dinner.

The problem is that your parents are inflexible and you are enabling their inflexibility.  You need to tell them when they come to visit that you will reserve X time for the kids to spend with them and then you will resume normal schedule and if they want to see the grandkids, they can tag along and come to their kids' events and socialize with you.  If they don't want to do that, then they should plan for the shorter visit for the time you reserve.  That is the compromise, X days that they get the way they want and then after that, the kids resume normal schedule.  Your parents can decide whether they want to tag along or just go home and make it a shorter visit. [/quote]

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