How To Keep The Fun Alive At Home With Your Growing Teens

When my daughters were toddlers and before they reach age seven, playing kiddie games with them was pretty regular for us. We have kiddie parties at home, lots of singing, dancing and laughing when we are together. Even when we are with our in-laws, we all spend time listening to our little kids’ babbles and giggles. Oh how time flies so fast, and so we all say.

Now, my two girls are grown up and some things have changed. Aside from the physical changes, they of course, do not want to play the same games as before. They also do not like to be the center of attention unlike when they were younger. But what we noticed though is, that although they tend to want to be separated from the adults during parties or gatherings, our kids still like to be “included”. And we don’t want them to be excluded either. So what we do is we still play games with them but games which can be both fun for kids of their age and to us adults at the same time.

I’ve listed some of our favorite games and I tell you we got some great time playing these games together. You might want to try them at home, with your kids and the extended members of your family.

8 Fun Activities and Games You Can Play With Your Teens At Home

1. Pinoy Henyo – This is a classic favorite amongst Filipinos. What we do is we get a paper, think of a word to be guessed by the one who will be in hot seat, write the word in a piece of paper and then stick it up on the guesser’s forehead. We tweaked this blindfolding the guesser so he won’t get any hint from the audience. Tweens like this when you use words that they can relate to like their favorite artists, popular words, or funny words. They like to be naughty and makulit with the words.

2. Charade – Like Pinoy Henyo, this is a guessing game but the difference is that you act out the clues for the audience to be able to guess the word. You’ll be amazed how creative your kids can be when coming up with actions.

3. Lipstick Challenge – Young people like to play messy and they also like to see adults being messed up so this game is hit with us. Although originally, this is for couples, kids can also get their own partners like their siblings, cousins or friends. The souvenir shots can be hilarious. What you will do is to pair family members and give each one of them a lipstick. Both persons in the pair will be blindfolded and they will try to put lipstick to each other while they are blinded. Make sure to take photo souvenirs of each pair. The pair with the best lipsticks will be the winner.

4. Mannequin Challenge – I wish I can let you watch the mannequin challenge we had last Christmas. The idea was started by my husband who is actually our joker in the family. However, for privacy reason, we opted it to keep it for the family’s eyes only. But I assure you it was fun and all the kids loved it, from my toddler niece to the young adults in the family, they were all game and the finished video was just fun to watch over and over again. I’ve embedded a fun sample video of a mannequin challenge and you can make your own. Our children had enjoyed the activity and they were excited of new occasions when we can do another round of this challenge.

5. Money Hunting – Oh teens love it because at this age, they like to have their own money. In this game, we prepare it beforehand by hiding bills in different parts of the house or the room. And for them to be able to find that, we think of clues which will give them an idea of the spot where they can find the money. It’s fun as you see them racing against each other, scrambling all over the room while thinking what the clues mean.

6. SnapChat – This is actually not a game but an activity where we take turns in using the funny filters of SnapChat. You need to have an iPad for this activity. The kids have a lot of fun making wacky poses with the adults.

7. Money Pot Luck – This we usually do before our party starts and before it ends as well. It’s better to do this activity when there are lots of participants or there will be at least two to three families in the party. The parents from each family will give a specified amount per each member of the family. For example, P50 each so for a family of 4, the pot money will be P200. All these money will be collected and kept for the winner. The names of each members will be written in a piece of paper. An assigned member will be picking one name after another, and whoever will be picked first will be the winner of the total pot money. There’s fun in waiting and we are all excited not to be called by the picker.

8. Hep-hep Hooray – This game was from Willie Revillame’s program, Wowowee. It’s like a follow-me game where the master will alternately point to any of the participants. Every time the master points to a person, that person will either say Hep-hep (with matching clapping hands near the belly) and then the next person will say Hooray (with clapping hands  at the top of the head). It’s funny when you see the participants getting confused or surprised when it was their turn to clap and speak.

All these in my list will be more fun doing in actual than reading them, promise haha!

Parenting teens is a lot different from parenting younger children. We noticed that the older they get, they either crave for more excitement or since they are starting to discover their own interests, they are starting to cringe at extra attention. As adults, we know we all went through the same phase when were their ages so we try to understand. But these changes in their behaviors sometimes create misunderstandings.

I once thought that when my kids get older, it will be all fun and laughter thinking that I’d have girl buddies. Although that’s true most of the times, there are also many times that me and my husband get disappointed. I guess that’s part of parenting. The disappointments make us realize what we may be missing as parents, what we should teach them along the way, because after all, we will always be first time parents for them. We are also learning while we teach them.

On those moments when I already want to pull my hair and just give up ( whispering sometimes, “bahala na nga kayo sa buhay nyo”), I’d always tell myself that we should never give up. Because everything or everyone may fail and give up on my kids, except us, their mom and dad. They may not realize it now, but we are everything they got, and that’s the same as on our side. They are all we’ve got and they will always be the most precious to us. When we watch my kids’ videos when they were younger, I yearn for them and all my irritations fade away. Those years were magical. Here’s one of our personal videos that we keep which show how kulit and pikon my kids were when they were small.

McDonald’s recent video “Laging Mahal Ni Nanay At Tatay” which you can watch below mirrors my thoughts about how unending parents’ love is. It will always be true even when they get older, even when they get to have their own families. Through the games that we play from time to time, we get to see my teens as the playful kids that they used to be and I feel that they also cherish these moments with us.

The only piece of advice that I can give to other parents like me who have older kids, is to not to stop reaching out and playing games with your kids. Let’s always be their forever playmates. Don’t worry that they may lose the respect when they see you giggling or laughing, dancing and singing pop songs. They won’t but instead, they will always treasure home as their own happy place.