Mother and Teenage Son Activities

A Look Inside: Do you find yourself constantly butting heads with your teenage son? Or maybe you get along great but are looking for a list of mother and teenage son activities so you can spend some quality time together before he drifts through those teenage years. Keep reading for my list of things to do with your teenage son (with input from a couple of our teenage sons!).

If you are a parent I am sure you have heard the phrase “the days are long and years are short. “

If you are like me I am sure you can’t believe just how long some of those days can feel. 

It  feels like just yesterday our son was a toddler and  having a meltdown on the living room floor yelling “I don’t WANNA take a deep breaf………….!” 

He is 16 now and my husband and I are fully aware of how fast time goes and how little time we have left before he completes his high school years. 

Teenagers can be tricky. Some days they just need some food and water and are content. Other days, it feels like the stress of the day is more than they can handle. 

They need quality time with their mom without worrying about schoolwork, whether they will have a great game/performance/meet, or what was said about them behind their back at lunch yesterday. 

Whether you are a seasoned mom with multiple teenagers or just getting started, we have some mother and son activities to help you spend intentional time together and  hopefully have some laughs along the way.

Table of Contents

List of Mother and Teenage Son Activities

Printable List of Things To Do With Your Teenage Son

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List of Mother and Teenage Son Activities

1| Help him study for a test/quiz

During the school year, teens have a lot of tests and quizzes. Usually a couple every week.

I enjoy helping our sons study for these when we have the chance because it tells me what they are learning about and it gives me a little 1 on 1 time with them. 

2| Take him out for a coffee/treat

Everybody loves a treat! What are some of his favorites? Our teenage boys like ice cream treats and visiting a local coffee shop for coffee or lemonade. 

Getting out for even just a few minutes is a nice change of scenery and getting that one-on-one time away from other siblings helps you appreciate him as an individual a little bit more. 

3| Play a favorite video game together

What video games does your son like to play? Our boys enjoy playing MarioKart 8 on the Nintendo Switch. I lose frequently, but we have a lot of laughs as they teach me their tricks and laugh at my “non-nintendo language.”

Our middle son also enjoys Minecraft. One way to connect with him is to ask him what he has been building. He can usually talk quite a bit on what has been working well for him and what new ideas he has been able to put in place.

4| Be ready to talk at bedtime

This is no joke. I’m not sure what it is but our teen boys often get the chattiest in the evening when I want to go curl up in bed from a busy day. The struggle is real. 

Some nights we end up having some great conversations which is totally worth missing a little bit of sleep. I definitely can’t make a habit of it, though, because I require rest to function best the next day.

5| Watch viral videos with him and quote them together later 

We enjoy watching funny videos on YouTube. One of our favorites to watch is the Holderness Family.

I love when something new comes out and our boys want to show it to us. These videos are so funny to me because they are usually pretty spot on.

The best part is quoting them together later when a similar situation comes up. 

Below is one of my favorite videos, Motherhood: Then vs Now

6| Make food together and eat it

Teenage boys are always starving and searching the kitchen for food to eat! One of my favorite things to do is make snacks and desserts with them and eat them together. 

It teaches them independence while spending some time together. We like to make cookies and snack trays. We also try to have them plan a meal, shop for it, and help prepare it on occasion. 

Our boys are home on break this week, so they each were in charge of a meal. It’s fun and helpful for them as they grow up.

7| Go for a hike, paddle boating, kayaking, or camping

I will be honest, I enjoy the outdoors more than our boys do. I could sit outside by a fire or go for a hike in a heartbeat, but our boys need some encouragement sometimes. 

Our family dog loves to be outside to go for hikes and sit by the fire with us so we usually use that as a motivation if needed.

8| Play trivia together

One of our favorite things to do together is play trivia games. Both of our teens are on the Scholastic Bowl teams at school and it’s a fun way to connect with them.

We usually play trivia on our Amazon Alexa, on our game systems, and board games. 

We really enjoy the Trivial Pursuit game on Nintendo Switch. You can purchase that game digitally and get a code to download it to your device.

We have played it several times and it’s always fun and entertaining! I know not to pick geography because the boys always get those right!

Another game we recently got and love is the game, “Shot in the Dark.” It’s a funny twist on trivia that you usually find yourself blindly guessing an answer and laughing really hard at how far your “Shot in the Dark” answer was from the truth!

You can learn more about this game by clicking here.

9| Watch a comedian together

Do your kids enjoy comedians but you have a hard time finding some that are pretty clean? Some of our favorites are Jim Gaffigan, Nate Bargatze, and Brian Regan. 

We know that some use a few words that we don’t use, but we still enjoy watching them with our kids and can still find humor in the show.

We explain that not everything we hear is appropriate and we also have conversations about how they hear much worse from their peers at school.

10| Plant a garden

I will be honest in saying that this is not our sons’ idea of a good time. We keep a garden and plant produce each year but the participation from our boys usually has to be encouraged. 

Our middle son and I enjoyed getting some seeds planted indoors in early spring and look forward to planting them outside when the temps are consistently warmer. 

It’s so fun to see the fruit of our labor when the produce comes in!

If you’re intimidated by getting started, read The Beauty & Benefits of Family Gardening to learn how simple and beneficial it can be for your family.

11| Watch a movie together

Do you find it hard to find a movie to watch together with your teenager? It’s hard for me to decide on one sometimes. 

I recently came across a website, Grown and Flown. It was started by 2 moms in hopes of being a resource for parents of kids ages 15-25.

Currently, they have over 500 contributors including doctors, psychologists, teachers, and many more providing articles to support parents. 

They cover a variety of topics from mental health, family life, college, love and sex, and much more. 

They have shared a post including 90 movies to watch with your teenager/college student and include summaries and trailers on a few of them.

Please note, I have not watched all of these movies. This is just a resource you can check out and decide if you want to watch some of these with your teen.

Our boys were looking forward to the new Super Mario Bros movie coming out. We don’t go to theaters often but it happened to come out over spring break so it worked great for a special outing! 

12| Go thrifting

Most boys enjoy a challenge. They enjoy an adventure.

We enjoy taking our boys thrifting. We usually have a few things that we are on the lookout for and if we see anything else helpful for a great price, we get it for future use. 

Recently, one of our boys really wanted some roller blades and found some nice ones for a great price at a thrift store!

13| Watch the Amazing Race

We have watched several seasons of the Amazing Race with our oldest boys. They enjoy seeing the places the teams visit and learning about different cultures.

It’s fun to watch the assigned tasks and see how they get accomplished.

It also provides some great conversation as some of the teams have a hard time communicating and respecting each other. 

14| Do a family text thread

This is convenient and quite fun! We really enjoy sending pictures to each other and it’s a great way to keep everyone informed about daily details they need to know!

15| Get outside and play some sports

Depending on your son, he may be outside all the time or maybe he needs encouragement to do so. 

Either way, it’s so great for his body and mind to get fresh air and be outside. 

We enjoy playing basketball with our sons in the driveway. We also are planning to get a badminton set this summer because both of our teens love to play it.  

16| Clean/Organize his room with him

Chances are your son will not get excited when you tell him that you are going to help him clean and organize his room. 

Once you get past his lack of enthusiasm you just might reminisce about things you find, laugh a lot, and he will appreciate how clean his room is when you are finished. 

17| Volunteer together

Depending on your son, this may take some encouragement. 

Some ideas could be filling up food pantries, picking up garbage, ringing the bell for Salvation Army at Christmas time, taking a neighbor a meal/treat, donating books to a book drive, and watching for activities in the community to serve.

18| Visit a landmark or museum nearby that you haven’t been to

The options are endless with this one. You can make an overnight trip or a quick outing. Check out local places in town that you often drive by but don’t know much about.

Visit the state capitol. Go to a state park.

We took our boys the Abraham Lincoln Museum over Spring Break and we all had a wonderful time learning history together.

19| Go to the library

Have you checked out your local library lately? We try to go at least every couple weeks and check out movies, books, CDs, video games, and audiobooks.

It’s a good resource and it’s fun to go together.

20| Go to a musical/play

Even if your son isn’t into theater, it’s a lot of fun to go see local plays and musicals. It’s a great way to support the community. Chances are some aspect of the evening will be interesting to him and lead to great conversation. 

When our son turned 16 we took him to a symphony orchestra. We really enjoyed this trip and made some great memories.

21| Walk the dog

Do you have a dog or know somebody that needs one walked? We have spent so much time walking since we got our dog a couple years ago.

Even if your son doesn’t seem up for a walk, often he will say yes because the dog is cute. It’s such a great time to chat and catch up.

22| Learn about one of his hobbies

What hobbies does your son have? If he doesn’t have any, it’s a great time to help him find one. Our teenage sons are pretty different. One loves music. He plays the oboe and the clarinet and is often singing, whistling, or listening to music. 

Anytime I want to connect with him, I ask him how band is going or what he has been practicing.

I also listen to videos of musicians on YouTube with him. He gets pretty talkative and it helps me to get into his world.

My other teenage son enjoys talking about our chickens and hanging out near them. If I need a topic to chat about, I can usually bring up the chickens and we usually end up laughing about them.

Now that you have some ideas of things to do with your teenage son, we want to make it more convenient for you by sharing a printable list.

I can’t tell you how many times I read a post to get ideas and then forget what they were. I usually have a million screenshots of pieces of an article and wish I had something I could just print with the information all in one place.

Printable List of Mother and Teenage Son Activities

We hear you and have compiled our list into a printable so you can print it out and refer back to it if you need a fresh idea. You can use it spontaneously or as a bucket list to complete together.

>>>To get this printable  List of Mother and Teenage Son Activities, simply click here!

Wrapping Up Things To Do With Your Teenage Son

I hope this post inspired you to think of some ways to spend time with your son doing things that you both enjoy and making great memories along the way.

What are some of your favorite things to do with your son? I would love some new ideas. 

Mother and Teenage Son Activities