How to have a family fun evening at home with teenagers!

[YogaRebel]

Need some inspiration - how to make an occasion out of an evening at home with 2 teenagers that isn't get a takeaway / watch a movie ....

they hate board games ( although I love them ) ....

what's the best evening at home you ve had with your teenagers ? Wackier they better ! I feel like lockdown turned the family into tv heads - I wanna mix it up. There gotta be more to life than Netflix lol

Difficult! One of those murder mystery dinners?

We had an unexpectedly great evening with DSS and his girlfriend about a month ago where we got them both to teach us something.

DSS has got into boxing this year so he taught us all some boxing basics, and then his girlfriend taught us a dance routine she'd made up with her friends.

They're both 15 so just about at the age where it was fun for them to 'turn the tables' on us a bit –might not work so well with older teens, although you never know...?

Jurassic World Monopoly is more than a board game ime!!

We play trivial pursuit and card games for fun.

Would they play something like Taskmaster?

Just Dance on the Wii (dd3 getting a Switch so we can refresh the songs soon...).

I know you say no board games, but Dixit was unexpectedly hysterical!

All preparing (and dressing as) Eurovision acts (foreign language songs were learnt) - but we all love Eurovision

Taskmaster, homemade (actually did it over zoom last year with other families, was the best fun!).

We build a complicated model or something.
Or play Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes - they absolutely love it as it involves screens (and paper instructions so you'll need a printer).
We make a fire in the fire pit and burn our old papers whilst they pretend they know how to do 's'mores.
They use their quizzing apps to put quizzes onto the telly.

I know, I know, but Cards Against Humanity. MN hates it though.

My teens quite like Cluedo.
Making S'mores also seems to generate some enthusiasm...
Liked the suggestion penguin made about asking them to teach you something, am going to try that one here.

how old are they? Can they drink?

Mine do like playing games - but if they don't like board games, what about Cards Against Humanity? We also play some general knowledge games. Mafia good too. Chameleon. Lots that are very funny. My dd took some of our games to university and plays them with her flatmates now.

I've got one of those unsolved crime packs from Amazon for this year.

Table tennis competition

We’ve had a couple of bake offs evenings with our teens (we’ve done a few, to keep the amount of cakes made down we’ve had teams of teens v parents, boy v girls, all against each other) .

We’ve had cheesecake rounds, cupcakes, best decorations out of icing, cookies.

Mine enjoy them and we’ve done a few over zoom with family/friends- we put the bake off music on and at the end everyone scores each other to get the overall winner.

We play poker with our teens.

Cards against humanity is brilliant.
My teenage dd likes to do karaoke so we all join in (badly).

come dine with me? someone in charge of the dinner each week and you all score?

Charades.

How about a Bob Ross-style painting competition?

Online escape room. There are festive themed games available or lots of other themes, I’m sure there will be one that matches their interests. Some of them are linear so you all have to work together to solve one clue before moving on. Others, you all explore on different devices so there’s a lot going on but you have to collaborate.

Cash and guns- it's really not like any other board game.

It's a bit odd to "hate board games". All of them? There are hundreds of different sorts. I'm not a fan of Monopoly or Risk, but I love playing Azul, or Blockus. Pictionary? Creationary? Articulate? We've got one like pictionary where you have to build the thing out of lego.

We did a murder mystery evening with our teens recently and everyone had fun. Can find the link if you like? I paid and downloaded it.

Theme food night? Pick a theme or a country and ask each person to make a part of the meal. All dress up on theme?

If you don't mind buying canvas and paints you could all follow one of those Youtube painting parties.

Christmas cookie decorating? Make gingerbread houses?

There's an Icelandic tradition on Christmas eve where everyone gets a new book and lots of chocolate and everyone sits reading and eating chocolate.

Those name that tune song quizzes on YouTube are a hit here.

Last year we made a silly Christmas TikTok message thing together with the dogs for relatives in UK.

Thanking you all soooo much for such great ideas! Lots of fun to be had in that lot - you can't beat a bit of family fun.