8 fun ways for teens to celebrate their birthday at home
Let's face it, wonderful as all our teenagers are (most of the time!), it can be more than a little challenging working out how to help them celebrate their birthday at home with their besties.
What are the activities that are cool enough for them not to induce eye-rolling? What is guaranteed to keep them thoroughly entertained?
If you're stuck on this particular parent-of-a-teen issue right now, take a look at this list of fail-safe birthday activities for teenagers.
And just to remind you, there is nothing better than starting up a conversation on a walk together to casually drop some of these ideas and see which one draws them in.
8 utterly enjoyable ways to celebrate
Plan an epic teen birthday celebration at home with one of these go-to ideas safe in the knowledge your teen will truly enjoy their special occasion.
1. Movie Night
Do you have a teen who just wants to do something low-key for their birthday? How about a movie night, then?
The key to a successful movie night is to make sure you agree on the movie or movies beforehand.
Either go for something new that everyone is excited to watch or find a movie classic that your teen and their guest will love.
Here are some movie genres to help you get started:
- 80s classic movies
- 90s classic movies
- 00s classic movies
- Scary movies
- Musicals
- Fantasy
- Sci-fi
- RomComs
Load up a snack board with sweet and savoury treats, or get some cinema-style popcorn and snack trays to create a movie-theatre vibe.
2. Retro Birthday Party
Just because teens are no longer little kids, it doesn't mean that they won't (secretly) love playing party games and having a good old school style birthday party... I dare you to serve them jello and ice-cream!
Anyhoo, if you want to make life easy for yourself, grab a bundle of party games for teens to print out.
3. Tea Party
Think that something more refined than a classic birthday party will go down better?
How about setting up a vintage-style afternoon tea party?
I'm thinking finger sandwiches, canapés, cupcakes, macarons... with mocktails and bubble tea served on the side.
I've put together a whole bunch of afternoon tea party ideas for teens over on Mums Make Lists.
And of course, you can grab this set of vintage-style tea party games to have printed ready to play.
4. Karaoke
Karaoke is a brilliant party activity for fun-loving teens who love nothing more than singing their hearts out.
The easiest way to set up karaoke at home is with a machine like this one.
Do make sure to do a trial run before the party, an essential step for anything that involves relying on tech whilst a bunch of teens look on!
5. Backyard Music Festival
This is essentially a music and dance party dressed up as something a bit cooler.
Hosting a mini-musical festival is a great summer birthday party idea. Don't worry; you don't need access to a field; you can just use your backyard.
Take inspiration from Coachella or Glastonbury and scale down as appropriate.
Put together music playlists on Spotify or ask your teen or their friends to DJ.
Perhaps some of them are in a band or have friends in a band who could do a set.
You could even set up a food station with festival-style food:
- Pizza
- Tacos
- Hot dogs
- Fries
- Corndogs
- Poke bowls
- Nachos
- Corn on the cob
- Waffles and ice-cream
- Hot doughnuts
6. At Home Escape Room
Escape rooms are a great way for teens to collaborate and buzz brain cells together.
And the great thing is, you don't need to go to an escape room venue, you can set one up at home.
There are plenty of escape room kits to buy, like this Escape Kit, which has four escape room games specifically for teens.
7. Board Game Marathon
Now I know this may not sound like the most exciting of ideas, but trust me, it works really well for smaller gatherings.
Having a board game or two to play gives a low-key gathering a focus that diverts teens away from their phones.
Plus a little healthy competition is always fun.
Pick a couple of board games from my roundup on Mums Make Lists of the best board games for teens.
8. Sleepover Spectacular
Sleepovers really come into their own when kids get to their teens.
As long as you supply food and drink, you will likely not even see anyone until they arrive blearly eyed looking for breakfast the next morning.
Of course there are lots of things you can do to make a sleepover extra fun, so here's 14 cool things for teens to do at sleepovers.
I hope I've managed to give you some useful inspiration. Don't forget to save this post on Pinterest:
