Birthday Ideas for 18Year Old Girl Please..... C

what.
the.
hell.
i mean.....
balloons?
pony rides?
pin the tail on the donkey?
what 18 year old needs her mother to plan her party for her?
?
khairete
S.

What does SHE want?

Communicate with her and then start planning!!

Maybe a nice dinner at a nice restaurant in a private room.

Small group stay over at a nice hotel with shopping and nice dining options.

Group activity to some event in your area. Concert, etc

What does your daughter want? Both my kids that have already turned 18 planned stuff with their friends. I gave them a gift, money, and that was it. They really don't like to do baby stuff at that age and a parent supervised birthday party is, well, babyish.

What does SHE want? A dinner? Just snacks and movies and a sleepover? Once my kids were old enough to have an opinion I tried to follow their lead, within a budget of course. As teenagers they seemed to like dinners at a favorite, fun restaurant with a group of friends, but those were MY girls, I have no idea what your daughter would like. Ask her.

I was going to say the same as a few moms below .. at that age, my mom wasn't involved in my parties at all. If anything, they just vacated the house :)

I think if you want to organize something big for her, get her input and just make the arrangements if you need to. When my sister turned 16 my mom just rented a hotel room for her and her friends and paid for their meal - but that was it. And that was just a few close friends. If this is large, just offer to pay for whatever she chooses to do. She's bound to have specific ideas.

for my 18th my friends surprised me with concert tickets to a concert at a local venu, then we hit up a good restaurant and it was great.
( they also had talked to the band and they called me out, pulled me on stage and had everyone sing to me.. embarrasing but still fun!)

I'm going to guess that this is the same daughter about whom you asked questions recently, regarding SAT scores, college admissions, etc.

Because my first thought, upon reading your question, was that perhaps you have a special needs child who wants to have a party at home, planned by mom. My dear friend has a daughter with severe special needs who is 25 years old. She still has birthday parties at home with her friends from Special Olympics, and there are balloons and cake and party hats and they play musical chairs in the back yard, and it's a joyous occasion.

But now I think that this is your college-bound daughter, who appears from your previous posts to be independent.

Is this her idea to have a dozen young adults come to your small home for a traditional birthday party? There's got to be something more to this: either you are forbidding her to go out with friends because there's a probability or history of drinking, or she's afraid to go out due to insecurity, or there's a severe financial situation which would prohibit your buying movie passes or sending her and her friends to a bowling alley or a restaurant.

If it's money, be honest with her and limit the party to a couple best friends. If it's insecurity, encourage her to meet her friends at a fun place, like a Dave and Busters or a paint ball place. If its a case of not allowing her to go socialize, realize she'll be in college in a couple of months.

Because as others have said, there are not many 18 year olds who want mom to plan a party at home. If your standards or beliefs prohibit her going to a pizza place or another fun, alcohol-free event, then let her have a couple of friends over and get lots of mani-pedi things with fun colors and have a girls' spa night. With like 4 girls max.

At this age, at the high-school graduation age, most teens and young adults don't stay at one home. When our son graduated, he wanted a party, but upon further investigation, what he actually meant was, would we set out food, sodas, the banners that said Congratulations Graduate, maybe some balloons for decoration, and he and his friends would make our house one of the stops on their "party train". Sure enough, a bunch arrived, devoured food, laughed and talked, and after maybe an hour they were off to the next house, and then the next.

You might consider letting your daughter and her friends go bowling or to get their nails done, and then having them back to your house for ice cream and cake and sodas or punch at an established time.

At 18, my kid had her own place and planned her own party.

At 18, she has the "ability" to have a party without chaperones - as TF suggests, maybe a "girls night" in a hotel room near your town? Sleepover-type situation with a nice dinner and manicures at the hotel spa? (Any shenanigans they might get into are no different from college dorm room stuff...but if it makes you feel better, you and a good female family friend could get a room in the hotel too and just "be around".)

By 16, my son wasn't at all interested in parents planning parties, and neither were any of his friends. They don't want themes or games or anything else. If you want to keep it affordable for 10-15 kids and hold it at your home, I would just get some pizza (or have them make their own - buy the fixings and put everything on the table like a salad bar). Then let them do what they want - watch movies or whatever. If space is really tight, they can do so in shifts, with half the kids watching a movie and the other half in the kitchen. They don't need to move around as much as you may think - they aren't playing games like littler kids are.

What you DO have to do is supervise for alcohol and drugs and so forth (and even if your daughter is a "good kid" you just don't know what some friends will do or if others will show up to crash the party) - so make a few passes through the rooms to collect cups and paper plates, even if you just walk through with a trash bag. Otherwise they don't really want you around.

If she wants to invite fewer kids or if money is no object for you, you can send them to the movies and out for burgers. If you are a AAA member, you can buy somewhat discounted passes to make it slightly more affordable.

But the main thing is to ask HER what she wants to do, and then to provide a little supervision to be sure things don't get out of hand - because YOU are responsible if anyone brings alcohol into the house.

Set them up & make yourself scarce retire to your room or go out to dinner or whatever. They will make do just fine making that many fit and fun just with the freedom. Load up on the food and goodies. Let her do the thing with her girls!

What are you going to get her? How fun! Congrats to you both, 18 is the big one!

Pizza party at a local place. Use their room option.

Or ask her what she wants to do.

I think if she is inviting that many kids to do something with her and your house is too small then look into something like bowling. They can have pizza and sodas and have fun bowling together. What does she like to do? If she and her friends are into arts and crafts they can do one of those crafting nights at a Paper Source. Adults (like me) like to do these. Or they could all go to a movie and out to eat. I would let her take the lead and just give her some money to cover expenses. I can't imagine them wanting an adult around at that age.

A bowling party still works for 17-18 yr olds.

If you have space for it in your front or side yard, you can always do a fire pit.. I did this last year for my son's birthday. Although he is younger( will be 13) , the kids ( 10 in total) ran around the yard, and roasted marshmallows. They had a blast. As she is a older teen she may enjoy just hanging around her friends talking. You could set up music to be outside and they could have their space or whatever. Get some pizzas and a cake and there you go!