Halloween activities for older children and teenagers

This is a collaborative post

I've always enjoyed having fun at Halloween with my children, but now that they are older we've sadly moved beyond Halloween toilet roll tube crafts and dressing up in sweet costumes for trick or treating. It doesn't mean that they are too old for the fun though, there are still plenty of crafts and activities that are more suited to older children. Here are some of my favourites!

Carving pumpkins

This is the classic Halloween activity, and is definitely one of our favourite Halloween traditions. I'm not the best at carving pumpkins myself, and I tend to stick with a simple grinning face. But there are loads of pumpkin carving templates available, and if you can trust your teenager with a sharp knife then they may enjoy attempting something a bit more complicated.

Photo credit Andy Holmes via Unsplash

Doing some Halloween themed baking 

My favourite Halloween bake was these Halloween iced gingerbread biscuits. They are so simple to make, and with some clever icing you can make all sorts of different designs. Even if you don't have any specific Halloween cookie cutters you can still improvise with what you have - I used gingerbread men cutters for mummies and Easter egg cutters for skulls! You can also make really simple Halloween cupcakes with some edible eye decorations and a selection of icing in vibrant colours. 

Making Halloween decorations

The children might have grown out of toddler Halloween crafts, but you can still get them involved in decorating the house for Halloween. Just bear in mind that as they get older their imagination might turn towards more realistic and gruesome ideas! You could think about a theme for the whole house, including window displays, lighting and garden decorations. I also love the idea of repurposing some of their toys into Halloween decorations, like old dolls and stuffed animals. Then on the night itself they can dress up to help hand out sweets to the younger visitors.

Photo credit Jen Theodore via Unsplash

Painting ceramic decorations

My children have always enjoyed pottery painting, and there are some lovely kits available, either classic Halloween designs or maybe something a bit more grown up like a decorative pumpkin or sugar skull. I find that the kits don't always contain the best paints, so we usually use our own acrylic paints and take the time to mix the correct colours and let the layers dry in between coats for a nicer finish. 

Taking photos at a pumpkin patch

They might be a bit old now to pose prettily next to an aesthetic pumpkin display, but if your teenager enjoys taking photographs then they might still enjoy a visit to the local pumpkin patch. It's a fun family day out and they can take some photos to share with friends on social media.

Photo credit Marius Ciocirlan via Unsplash

Having a scary Halloween adventure

If your teenager doesn't scare too easily then they might enjoy something a bit more adventurous like a Halloween themed escape room or horror maze. In the UK these are becoming much more common, and although they are a little too terrifying for me I can imagine that plenty of teens would love them, especially if they can visit with their friends rather than their boring parents!

Have fun celebrating Halloween with your older children!

How I entice my teenagers down from their bedrooms

When my children were little they always wanted to be close to me. They only went to their rooms for sleeping, and they never got up to any mischief because they were always in the same room as I was! Now they are older they prefer their own space a lot more, and spend most of their time when at home in their bedrooms. This started during the pandemic, when they did their home schooling video calls in their rooms, but of course it's a natural part of growing up too. 

Sometimes it's nice for me to have a bit more peace and quiet to work on my own projects! But I do also miss them, especially at the weekends when sometimes it feels as though the entire day has gone and I've hardly seen them. So I've been trying to find ways to entice them out of their rooms and into spending some time with me.

Anything food related is a good one for Mia. A few times I've taken her out to the café at the garden centre around the corner and treated her to a fancy hot chocolate and a cake. As a bonus there is a Hobbycraft in the same retail park and so we often make a stop there too. We always seem to have a voucher to spend, or else there is something on special offer!

I can also entice them downstairs to watch something together if I provide a favourite snack like popcorn or chocolate fingers. And Mia loves baking, especially if licking a spoon is involved!

Sometimes I'm able to drag one child at a time out for a walk. We have a little loop that runs down through our estate and back through a foresty footpath. I entice them with the promise of some private talking time with just me which they like, it's a good way to both get some exercise and also chat through anything that's bothering them.

Recently I've got back into doing jigsaws again and I've discovered that they both like helping out from time to time. Mia spotted this Squishmallow jigsaw while I was browsing on Amazon the other day, and I had a voucher so I bought it for us to do together. It's a very challenging one! I'm trying to keep away from it during the day so that we can do it together!

I also like to find a television show or film that we'll all enjoy watching together. At the moment I'm sitting down with Harry and we are working our way through Red Dwarf, which has recently been put up onto iPlayer. I was a massive fan as a teenager and watched it over and over, I always have a Red Dwarf quote in my head! But I discovered that there have been three more seasons that I've never even watched because they were on Dave and I didn't know how to watch them! So we are just about to get to the new episodes which is quite exciting. Harry has also been loving Look Around You which is also on iPlayer, it's a sort of spoof science television show series which was on a few years ago. It's very surreal and very funny. 

Sometimes I can persuade the children to come downstairs and sit at the kitchen table with me while we all work on our own projects, especially if there's a pack of biscuits involved. They often do some homework, and I like seeing what they are up to at school. They also do things without screens, like reading or drawing. It's nice to all be in the same space but still doing our own thing!

I much prefer this stage of parenthood to the early baby and toddler days!