Some tips I used to throw a successful teen house party

[doggylover2]

So I had a teen house party for my 15 year old DD around this time last year. Haven't done one again yet just because since then she's been going to other people's parties when she can. But here's some tips I used

1. my DH was a bartender for our "cocktail bar" aka a mocktail bar but we called them cocktails. We told the parents but not the kids that there was no real alcohol. And we didn't use names like virgin (insert drink) we just used the real name. I'm not sure about other people's but this made the party seem way cooler
2. I had a larger friend of mine be bouncer. This worked really well since I trust him enough to be safe with them but also everyone thought he was a real bouncer and so it sorta added the thrill it wasn't just the parents being Bouncers
3. but a tone of cheap disco lights/lasers on Amazon. Our house was flooded with them and it made a amazing atmosphere.
4. spice up soft drinks. Aka add garnishes make them look fancy
5. don't interfere if you don't need to don't walk through the party if you hear a tone of teens singing However if you hear what sounds like a fight then get down there ASAP. Thankfully since DH saw basically everything from behind the bar and the "bouncer" could also see everything there was never a situation where I needed to come down
6. not for every party but buy a tone of Glow sticks and UV stuff. This made it way cooler for them
7. make it clear to everyone that if the rules are followed then You'll be happy to have a second one whoever if they're broken there's no chance of one
8. Don't be afraid to have a later finish if the parents don't mind. Personally mine ended at 1am we are rural so noise wasn't a problem. There was a large majority of girls sleeping over so that's why we could do this

Personally mine was great my Daughter loved it and believe it or not no one brought alcohol. I mean to be fair they did know they'd have it binned if they came with any but still it was a huge success

Had a similar party for Halloween for 14/15 yr olds. Didn't even say no alcohol as none of them drink. I provided Shloer type drinks and some bought bottles of that too. It was very noisy with singing and dancing and DH and I felt like spare parts so kept out of their way apart from when we did fireworks and sparklers etc.

One question though. When you say you made cocktails but didn't tell the party goers they contained no alcohol did the party goers expect them to be made with alcohol? Surely you would have told your DC there were soft cocktails. If someone wanted a vodka martini how did you get around that? Bit confused by the guests not being told as they may have bought some them selves and brought in with them as they didn't know in advance that there was no alcohol.

@AnneOfCleavage I never answered any questions on that. And there was a set menu for The drinks. They were told they were cocktails and that's it they could have been 99% Alcohol or 0% alcohol to their knowledge.

Why didn't you want the invitees drinking alcohol when you've started another thread asking parents why they won't let their teens drink?

@INeedNewShoes well mainly because I know there's one or two parents that would give their kids alcohol and blame me if something happened and I can't put up with them whining in my ear. I didn't provide any because i couldn't afford to I needed to pay for other stuff i stupidly paid for the music on iTunes when I could have just started a free Spotify premium trial

My DD would have gone thirsty then as she wouldn't have wanted to risk drinking any then If you refused to answer the question of "what alcohol is in this" or "does this contain alcohol" 

There is nothing wrong with letting them know it's an alcohol free party - they can choose to come or not I guess. Not sure why the big secrecy.

@AnneOfCleavage well to be fair there wasn't any questions they were cocktails and no one cared to ask any questions they were too busy dancing

@AnneOfCleavage I should have mentioned that

Just a word of warning, this works for 15 but by 16 they all bring alcohol even when the invitations explicitly said don't (we made very low alcohol punch, parents knew but gave their kids a bottle, even vodka to bring as a contribution!) oh and parents in attendance - forget it, you either have to go upstairs or if you trust them, go to the pub. If you are uncomfortable with this situation I suggest not hosting a teenage party, plenty of other birthday options (eg my dd2 took 5 friends to tgi Fridays and I paid £15/head towards bill.) dd1's was ok btw, but two girls were pretty drunk and I called parents to fetch them when we returned at 11pm, neither seemed fazed at all by the alcohol consumption.