Top 5 Things To Do When Bunch Of Teenage Girls Are Getting Ready At Your House For A Big Dance

Over the weekend, there was a big dance at the local high school, so my stepdaughter and a few of her friends got ready for the evening at our house.

On these occasions, parents have to deal with shoes covering the floors, high school students walking around everywhere, and far too much music, yelling, and music that sounds like yelling.

In order to make it through these events unharmed, our judges have put together the Top 5 Things To Do When A Bunch of Teenage Girls Are Getting Ready At Your House For A Big Dance.

First, a few honorable mentions:

Plan on not getting anything done at home. You may have ideas for projects you are going to work on, but you might as well give up on them for the day.

Make a plan for photos. You have to take them, so figure out where teenagers can stand for the best images, how you can avoid ruining the photos with shadows and how you can avoid being in any of them.

5. Secure a room you can escape to. Throughout the day, there will be times when you can’t sit in or walk through a room because there are too many teenagers with curling irons, make-up devices, and questions about hair. In these instances, you just say, “Oh, I forgot one of my shoes upstairs,” or “I better check again to see if the mail is here,” or “I need to go reorganize my sock drawer,” and then you go to your safe space for the next 30 minutes or however long you can stay there.

4. Get groceries – If anyone needs any item at all while they are getting ready, volunteer to go get it. I spent an hour buying bobby pins yesterday. A crowded grocery store or mall feels like an afternoon at the beach compared to what is happening at your house.

3. Don’t offer advice about how something looks – You will almost always be wrong and it will just cause delays. If you think a certain article of clothing or a nail polish looks perfect, then it probably does not go with something or makes a teenager look too purple, or something else you won’t think of first. Try to change the subject or pretend you didn’t hear them if they ask how they look. “Did you ask me about a book? Why yes, I think books are great. Oh, you didn’t say book? I understand, then yes, I think you’re a great cook. I need to go feed the dog. I will be back in about an hour.”

2. Tell them about dances when you went to school – Teenage girls love that when they are trying to get ready for their own dances, especially if you mention David Lee Roth and John Cougar Mellencamp. It is fun to remember those stories, plus they will most likely try to avoid you once you start telling those stories.

1. Enjoy it – In all seriousness, these days go by way too fast, so do try to appreciate having all of the teenagers over at the house while they are having fun getting ready for a big event. It can be entertaining and create wonderful memories. But in order to appreciate it properly, you still need to escape for a while to that garage, computer room, front steps, basement, crawl space, neighbor’s home, roof, car, closet or anywhere you can enjoy some quiet and listen to more David Lee Roth songs.