{"id":4330,"date":"2018-06-07T07:04:20","date_gmt":"2018-06-07T12:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stlouisdad.com\/s\/?p=4330"},"modified":"2018-06-07T07:04:20","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T12:04:20","slug":"throwing-a-surprise-party-for-a-teen-is-surprisingly-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stlouisdad.com\/s\/throwing-a-surprise-party-for-a-teen-is-surprisingly-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"Throwing A Surprise Party For A Teen Is Surprisingly Hard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Throwing a surprise party for anyone is risky business, but throwing a surprise party for your teenage kid is different ball game altogether. All kids catch a disease the moment they become teenagers, which means they become a little allergic to their parents and find everything they do super-cringy and embarrassing. Instead, they would rather just hang out with their friends and leave it at that.<\/p>\n

\"2002-003-Spirit<\/a><\/p>\n

But I\u2019m a dad, and I love trying to do the impossible, so I\u2019ve never wanted to leave anything \u2018at that\u2019, and certainly not the chance to prove you can throw a surprise party for teenagers and class it a success. It\u2019s about making memories<\/a>, man.<\/p>\n

So, without further ado, here some super-awesome tips to help you ail this tightrope walk and come out the other side with an unabashed cuddle and an \u201cI love you, Dad. Thanks for doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n

1. The Two Kinds Of Help You\u2019ll Need<\/p>\n

When it comes to planning a surprise bash, you\u2019re going to need help. But not just any help; very specific help. The first kind is professional help (you already knew that, though), by which we mean hiring a party planning – something you can learn more<\/a> about here. The other kind of help you\u2019ll want to enlist is your teen\u2019s BFFs. They\u2019ll know exactly who to invite, what sort of entertainment to get, what drinks are hot right now, what food your kid loves, the sort of music to play and what snacks to put out. They\u2019ll also be clued up on decoration advice too.<\/p>\n

2. Create A Great Keepsake<\/p>\n

Us Dad\u2019s may not be cool in principle, but we can do some pretty thoughtful things, such as buying a keepsake your kid will cherish for years to come. It could be a blank book that everyone can write in, such as a story they hare with your teen, or you could invest heavily in something that they\u2019ll appreciate when they mature into fully-fledged adults, like a watch or jewellery (engraved with the date, of course).<\/p>\n

3. Personal Touches Are Key<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter what sort of thing your kid is into, how much they loathe you in their teenage years, or how much angst they put out<\/a> in the world, they\u2019ll secretly love a personal touch or two. It could be that you hire a skateboard ramp knowing they\u2019re into it, or you might print out some of their most-liked Instagram photos and hang them from the trees in your garden or anything you fancy really. Just make sure it leans on the cool side of the line and not the awkwardly embarrassing.<\/p>\n

4. Hide The Party, Not The Day<\/p>\n

As a golden rule of thumb, don\u2019t plan the surprise party to be held on their birthday or any time afterwards, other wise they are just going to think you forget their birthday and be even more begrudged by your sight. Instead, plan the surprise to happen before their big day. That way you won\u2019t have to act suspicious or anything. You can just blow their mind, which is cool.<\/p>\n

This post is a collaborative effort by St. Louis Dad.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Throwing a surprise party for anyone is risky business, but throwing a surprise party for your teenage kid is different ball game altogether. All kids catch a disease the moment they become teenagers, which means they become a little allergic to their parents and find everything they do super-cringy and embarrassing. Instead, they would rather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Throwing A Surprise Party For A Teen Is Surprisingly Hard #dadbloggers","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,276],"tags":[639,12,147,65,740],"class_list":["post-4330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-family","tag-birthdays","tag-blog-2","tag-family","tag-fun","tag-parties"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stlouisdad.com\/s\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/2002-003-Spirit-Day-2001.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JMKA-17Q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlouisdad.com\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlouisdad.com\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlouisdad.com\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlouisdad.com\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlouisdad.com\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stlouisdad.com\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4332,"href":"https:\/\/stlouisdad.com\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330\/revisions\/4332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlouisdad.com\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlouisdad.com\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlouisdad.com\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlouisdad.com\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}