Your teen wants to throw a party and why not?  Hosting a party is one of the highlights of the teen years and your teen can score some serious points with their friends when they host a party that is fun and cool.  Your teen might want to host a party for graduation, for a birthday, for New Year's Eve, or for Halloween and will need some help and guidance in order to throw a party that is totally fun for the guests, but that is still appropriate.  There are a number of things to consider when throwing a teen party so let's get started.

There are a number of things that, as a parent, you must know about a teen party.  The first of these is that you mustn't been seen.  You or another adult should be on the premises as a chaperon, but other than explaining any rules at the beginning of the party or delivering food to the hungry guests, you must keep out of sight and avoid embarrassing your teen.  The same goes for younger siblings, whom your teen most likely does not want to be anywhere near the party.  Let them sleep over at a friend's place or the grandparent's house.

You also have to make a few things clear from the invitation stage.  Sometimes teens will want to bring friends to the party with them so you need to expect there to be more guests than you originally invited.  To keep this under control you can ask guests to check with you to see if they can bring anyone else.  Then you will have a good idea of how many are coming.

There is also a chance that teens will want to have alcohol at the party.  You have to consider the maturity level of your teen and his or her level of responsibility as well as that of the guests.  If you trust your teen, then you probably won't have any problems with this issue, but you can certainly reserve the right to ask anyone to leave if they have brought alcohol or drugs to the party.

Now teens may want to have a theme party and there are a number of special parties that can be planned.  You can have a Titanic party and let them dress up in formal attire.  The girls will love getting ready together and doing each others' makeup.  You can hold a fortune telling party and hire a palm reader or a tarot card reader to tell the fortunes of the guests.  If you cannot afford to hire someone, you can always dress up as a gypsy and do the readings yourself.  Another possibility is a regression party, where all the guests party like they were small children, playing games such as pin the tail on the donkey and the wheelbarrow race.

You can take the party out and have a mall party where you can plan a scavenger hunt.  You can have the guests roam all over the mall and find things like a certain number of escalators, a certain store, or the number of bathrooms in the mall.  At the end you can take them all to the pizza joint in the mall.  Another very unique idea is a surprise party for the birthday guests instead of a surprise party for the birthday boy or girl.  This is so much fun!  You and other adults will go and pick up each guest and blindfold them before taking them to the party location.  Once you get them there you can make them do silly things such as act like a chicken.  You can make this a camping party or a day at the beach and you can film the shenanigans.  The next day you can have a fun time watching the footage.

As you can see there are plenty of fun ideas for holding a teen party.  You will need to be sure to decorate the venue and plan ahead for party food.  Pizza is always a hit and Chinese food, Sushi, or even finger foods are great.  Add some punch, classy decorations, and some good dance music and you have a teen party worth talking about.  Teens like to come and go and they like a relaxed atmosphere.  You can create this if you work with your teen and follow his or her lead.  Of course, you need to be comfortable with the end results, but otherwise your teen should be the one to steer the party in the desired direction.  This will result in the most teen fun imaginable, for them and for you.