Anyone with teenagers in the household will know just how difficult it can be to keep them happy. There is something about being that age which just means that they can be quite unhappy a lot of the time, and probably all you have to do is think back to being that age yourself to understand why. Nonetheless, as the parent, you are probably keen to make sure that they are as happy as possible, and at this time of year that might prove especially important, and especially difficult to achieve.

I feel really lucky that both my teens embrace Christmas and still enjoy all the magic and fun, but I know this isn’t typical. I know lots of parents of teens who struggle to keep their children involved and enjoying themselves, which can impact negatively on the rest of the family.

In this post, we are going to take a look through some of the ways you can try to make Christmas more enjoyable for your teens, and of course the whole family will probably benefit from that too.

Don’t Pressure Them

First of all, you need to remember that no teenager in history has enjoyed being pressured too much. Whether it’s pressure to do something that they don’t really want to do, or just the pressure to appear as if they are enjoying themselves more than they are, this is something that can actually just add to their misery and ironically make things considerably worse. As such, it’s a good idea to try and avoid pressuring them if at all possible. As long as you can do that, you should find that you are going to have a much better chance of keeping them relatively happy for the festive period.

Choose Appropriate Gifts

Of course, a part of Christmas that teens do tend to enjoy a little more is the gift-receiving, but you need to make sure that you are looking into this in the right way, that you are choosing gifts which are appropriate and well thought out and which it seems likely that a teenager is actually going to enjoy. There is no point wasting money on things that you know won’t be well received. There are quite a few ways to approach this, but one is to think about what it’s like being a teenager and then try and find gifts that seem to align with that in some way.

For instance, teens are often starting to be quite concerned with personality and appearance, and developing a sense of what makes them individual. So you might want to get them something that is personalised, perhaps with a photo of them and their friends. A photo phone case is a thoughtful inexpensive gift that most teenagers are going to appreciate, so that is the kind of thing to consider. Some teens love to keep a journal, if your teen is one of them, that could be a good idea, or even a voucher for a day out or tickets to see that movie they’ve wanted to see in ages.

If you’ve got the gifts right, your teen is going to be a lot happier with this time of year in general – please remember though that the gifts don’t have to be expensive! It’s not about getting them everything they want just to keep them happy either!

Involve Them

Even though you will be keen not to pressure them to be involved, it is still a good idea to make sure that you are involving them somewhat, because they are going to need to feel like they are there, and that they are a part of the family and what’s going on. So be sure to involve them and to at least make them know that they are welcome to join in with all of the family activities. Hopefully you will find that they are happy to do this, and it’s going to mean that they’re a lot more likely to really fully enjoy themselves, but again, there is a balance to be drawn, and you should try not to pressure them too much either.

Take Them For Fun Activities

There are still many fun activities that your teenager can enjoy, even if they have started to lose some of the childlike enthusiasm for this time of year they might have had as recently as last year or the year before. So it’s worth drawing up a list of these kinds of activities and taking them to some of them, or seeing if they want to anyway. For instance, you could go ice skating with them, or perhaps take them to a theatre or something similar. This is the kind of experience that they are probably going to really enjoy, so it’s well worth thinking about if you want to make December that little bit more enjoyable for them and for you.

Those are some of the simple and straightforward ways to make sure that Christmas is a lot more enjoyable for your teens. Hopefully, these small things mean that this time of year is considerably better for everyone in the family.