Low Cost Party Ideas for Your Young Teen on July 4th!

July 4th is a wondrous, and might I say 'explosive' holiday! It is looked forward to by adults and children alike. For teens, it can also be a dangerous adventure as they taunt and dare each other with fireworks. Many a burn has been caused by a young person who didn't realize the dangers because they only saw the excitement and fun. Many simply chose to overlook the dangers because of peer pressure.

Make this 4th of July one your young teen can enjoy with a few friends. Give them choices on spending, crafting, and who can be invited. Make sure they know their limits and also know how to include peers who will want clean, safe fun instead of the 'troublemakers' that would turn the party into a sure disaster. Set your boundaries and make it known you will be there to supervise. But supervision also means you must allow them to have a certain amount of "space" to have their fun their way as long as it is safe. Remember, if you will be the only one supervising, it is best to keep the attendance low so as to be able to maintain control.

Maybe your young teen would like to gather the friends who would be involved to have a pre-party preparation. They could have their friends help with decorations, making party hats, and even preparing finger foods or maybe simple foods that could be cooked over a small, contained and easy-to-maintain fire.

Food ideas that are simple and quick are pre-cooked shrimp and cut-up hot dogs on shish kabob sticks. They could also include some Lil' smokies or cut up some long, smoked sausages, or some thick ham slices cut up and put on skewers with some pepperoni slices. Maybe they'd like to skewer some pineapples and marshmallows together to lightly heat over their camp fire. You could suggest that each child bring their own watermelon and allow them to carve the melons into their own creations before eating them! Another idea is to show them how to make their own jello in small dessert cups and garnish with red, white, and blue candies of some sort. They could purchase little flag toothpicks from a dollar store or party outlet. You could have a picnic table set up with individual, small serving bowls of barbecue sauce to dip their shish kabobs in.

You could include a karaoke sing-a-long as an event at their party and maybe even a watermelon seed-spitting contest, just for fun. A dance competition or maybe the old-fashioned game of sketching something for the gang to guess would be teen-worthy ideas. You'd only need a nail stuck in a tree to hang your cardboard backing to aid the sketching process, a cheap packet of paper, a timer of some sort, and a sharpie marker for the sketch game. If you don't have access to a karaoke machine, you could involve the kids in making up their own words to some of their popular songs just for fun. If you have a carport, you could provide chalk for an artistic endeavor. The kids might enjoy drawing pictures of fireworks, flags, or something else that relates to the holiday.

If you can't invest in your own fireworks and can't drive the kids to a local event to see the fireworks, you could ask the guests to contribute their own. Some kids would like to have their own fireworks but have no safe place to use them.

Above all, remember that two key words are 'safe' and 'fun', and don't forget to remind everyone what Independence Day is all about!