Birthday ideas for teenagers

Celebrating teenage birthdays is tricky, right? Unless you’re lucky enough to have an unlimited budget, it’s not easy to organise an acceptably ‘cool’ party or buy the perfect gift. We’re always being asked for teen birthday ideas and we hope our favourite recommendations provide some birthday inspiration.

Teen birthday party ideas

• The tried and tested house party is still the go-to for many teens. Adding a theme – tropical, celebrity lookalikes, come as your superpower, colour wars – makes it a night to remember. We’ve held A LOT of these over the years and have written blog posts on how to do it right and what to avoid.
• If the weather is with you, throwing your own mini-festival at home can be a huge success. Here are some tips on how to start.
• If you’ve got a covered space, holding an outdoor cinema party is always a winner. It doesn’t need to be in summer; heaters and cosy blankets make it all the more special. Not the cheapest option, but brilliant for younger teens. There are plenty of hire companies to be found online.
• Hiring a hot tub is another great option, particularly good for older teens.
• Bowling is simply fun, however old you are (and it’s great if you’ve got a mix of ages). No need to worry about the weather, or the house getting trashed either!
• Escape room parties are always a winner for teens.
• Spa day – if you get really organised and make your own treatments at home, this is a brilliant budget option.
• Cocktail/mocktail making party – if you’re feeling brave! Teens love nothing more than the idea of becoming a top mixologist!
• If your teen would rather celebrate with just a few close friends, you can take your pick from eating out, going to the movies, glamping in the garden, a day at a theme park and so much more.

Celebrate the teen years

• We absolutely love the idea of writing a letter to teenage sons and daughters, to sum up all your parenting wisdom or just to tell them what they mean to you. It works particularly well for 16th and 18th birthdays – we take a look at some wonderful examples here.
• One of the good things to come out of lockdown was the genius idea of organising everyone who’s local to “heart attack” your front door with hearts or notes with birthday messages on them. Such a fantastic way to make the birthday boy or girl feel really special on their big day.
• Another lockdown tradition that we hope will stick around is the compilation birthday message video. Getting in touch with friends and family (in strict secrecy of course) and asking them to video a birthday message to edit together makes for a wonderful surprise.
• We saw on Instagram (on the ever-inspirational @grownandflown account) the lovely idea of asking close friends and family to send a copy of their favourite book for an 18th birthday, with an inscription inside. Amazing!

Teen gift ideas

This is an easy one – we spend all day, every day thinking about brilliant gifts for teens. Of course, we recommend a lovely browse through our gift collection as a first step ? but having a think about what type of gift you want to give might help too.

Age specific gifts

One of our passions is that every teenage birthday is a big deal – 14, 15 or 17 as well as 13, 16 and 18. We’ve got you covered for thoughtful gifts for all ages in our Teenage Birthdays collection.

‘My Fourteenth Year Starts Here’ 14th Birthday Journal

Supportive gifts

Teenagers often need a boost of wellbeing or happiness – it’s not always the easiest of times. Gifts that are designed to provide just this can often make a real difference. There are some great products on the market that cater specifically to teenagers, and we’ve recently introduced a range of teenage gift sets that includes a Wellbeing Gift Set for Teens.

Wellbeing Gift Set for Teens

Gifts that support small businesses

Over the years, we’ve put together lists of really awesome gift ideas from small, independent, UK businesses on our blog. We highly recommend a look through our Teen Gifts blog posts. Our Christmas gift guides are always hugely popular and they work just as well for teen birthday ideas. And we’ve got ideas for vegan gifts and have also featured some of the young entrepreneurs we support.

We hope this has inspired you – do drop us a comment below and tell us your top birthday ideas for teenagers!

Louise & Anna