Being "The Fun House"
here are 6 ideas for having some wholesome fun with friends!
A recurring piece of advice that I’ve heard from experienced parents is this: “Be the fun house.”
Our kids will make friends and have many influences. They will desire to be cool and have fun. So what a gift it would be to them—and to their friends—if your own home is known as a place where kids and teens can be safe, loved, and have a really good time.
My parents did this wonderfully. The memories we made at home—and the times we had with friends over—were so much fun that I genuinely had little desire to make stupid decisions in the name of fun because…why? I knew what fun was. Small chance that drinking and partying could beat the parties that we hosted! My friends loved hanging out at my house, too, and we always had a great turnout.
Here are some ideas for things you can do to have a pretty wild good time with people of any age.
Pose Endurance Challenge
Basically you just see who can hold each yoga pose the longest. If you need an extra challenge, make players hold weights or water bottles. You might be surprised by who has the best perseverance! But you might be surprised by how even Warrior II can weigh a person down after awhile.
Juice Shots
This is a drinking game that anyone can get behind. You know how you can buy shots of really healthy (but potent) juices? Buy the grossest-sounding, most intense ones you can find from the refrigerated produce section and see who can handle ginger-turmeric-cayenne or kale-cabbage-lemon at full blast.
Spa Night
Get out whatever nail-painting, foot-soaking gear you have, and invite your guests to bring whatever they have, too. A giggle-inducing cream I’ve used in parties for years is the Elizavecca Milky Piggy Carbonated Bubble Clay Mask. After a few minutes of application, it bubbles up and looks ridiculous.
Spa night is a great time to serve each other, laugh at ourselves, enjoy good smells, and feel refreshed afterward.
Taste-Testing Parties
As mentioned yesterday, it doesn’t take that much extra work to make different versions of the same food and let guests sample each of them. Trader Joe’s has a “chocolate passport” and see which country’s confdection is the best, or you can offer multiple dipping sauces for veggies, or try new fruits you haven’t had before. Charcuterie is an easy way to sample and talk about foods, too!
Epic Nerf Fights
This might sound intimidating, but it’s really not too scary: remove breakables, buy some Nerf guns and ammo—or enlist your guests to bring their own—and split everyone up into teams. Blast the soundtracks to Christopher Nolan movies on any Bluetooth speakers you have or borrow. Turn off the lights, and maybe add a strobe light or two. Let them use pillows as shields.
You don’t have to have a large home or provide a big open space to play, because when the lights are off, you can be a few feet from your enemy and not even know it. You can even have some great close-combat battles in the kitchen.
The rules are simple: if you get shot in a limb, you can’t play with that limb anymore. (Example: you get shot in the leg, you have to hop around on the other leg. These limitations can get pretty funny.) If you get shot in the chest, you’re out for that round. Last person standing takes a win for their team. It’s never really about the score, though, but about living your action-movie dreams and feeling like a kid again.
I can’t exaggerate how much fun we had doing these at my parents’ house when I was in high school. They made me feel a lot more confident, too. Here’s a picture from a Nerf Night with me, my brother, and a “friend” who I got to know better and married a couple years later 😉 You never know what will come from a Nerf Night!
Family Scripts Ideas
You can, of course, use the activity ideas from these emails when friends come over! They’re really so much better with friends. Some that work particularly well in groups and with multiple ages:
Village, Birds’ Nest, Taco Shop, & other outdoor activities
Redemptive Tie-Dyeing (tell your guests to bring stained clothes!)
This upcoming Tuesday’s email for paid subscribers will have printables for an ice cream shop; our kids and their friends have been loving that activity. Here’s a preview!
I would love to hear some ways that you grew up in a “fun house” or knew someone whose house felt like a safe place for you.
What’s more important than the activities, of course, is the warmth.
Your kid’s friends will remember your love and presence more than how clean your house is, what activities you planned, what food you made, etc. Far more impactful: Did your guests feel like you liked them?
Hopefully this encouraged you!
Warmly,
Hope from Family Scripts
P.S. Shout-out again to my mom, who was—and is—exemplary at fostering fun. 🏆