Bucket List Ideas for Teenagers

Bucket lists don't have to be long lists of things to accomplish before dying, especially if teens are writing them. Instead, they can itemize a limited number of achievable goals set for a short period of time, such as summer vacation. Teens need to set these goals, not parents. Typically, bucket lists focus on setting specific plans for living life to the fullest and in a meaningful way. Fun and adventure are important line items.

  1. How Teen Bucket Lists Began

    • It may seem odd that a teen cultural phenomenon, such as making adventure to-do lists, would be rooted in a movie about old age. In 2007, Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson starred in "The Bucket List," a buddy movie about two older men who are seriously ill and share life lists of adventures they've always wanted but never achieved. Together, they set out to go skydiving and climb in the Himalayas before kicking the bucket.

      Teen bucket lists are popular on Tumblr, a social networking site. One series focused solely on lists for summer vacation in 2012 and included items about building a sandcastle, going night swimming, kissing a stranger and teaching someone English. Teachers sometimes give students assignments to create bucket lists of academic goals for a semester or another brief period of time.

    Teens Make the Choices

    • A bucket list is only meaningful or doable if it is inspired by the desires of the person writing it. Although a parent can give advice if it is requested, you shouldn't tell children what to write. A teen's bucket list is a compendium of his dreams and goals, not yours. Sometimes in writing your own bucket list, you may discover that it contains goals for your children to achieve. That's when the helicopter parent needs to touch down and quit hovering, according to parenting writer and author of the e-book "Family Bucket Lists," Lara Krupicka. Sharing your own high school memories and dreams is okay. However, don't force teens to relive your pastimes or achieve your own unfulfilled goals, Krupicka says.

    Teens Sharing Lists

    • The majority of teen bucket lists online are posted by girls. Romance is a frequent topic such as items about kissing in the rain, in the snow, underwater, after midnight and on top of the Empire State Building. Going traveling, achieving sports goals, honing talents -- such as taking singing lessons -- and making time to have fun with friends also appear on many lists.

      Teens often encourage each other to try the same bucket list experiences. Student reporters at Wayland High School in Massachusetts concluded its Wayland Student Press Network publication in 2012 with a bucket list of "62 things to do before summer ends." They suggested flying a kite, holding a Fourth of July barbecue, donating blood, starting a band with friends, going swimming at night, painting a bedroom and inventing a new recipe. Their proposed bucket list contained an idea for every day of break, but an individual teen's list needn't be that long.

    Serious Teen Life Lists

    • You don't have to be entering old age to face the difficulties and longings that come with serious illness. Kentucky high school student Reese Kemp has diabetes and cystic fibrosis. In 2012, he started a charitable foundation and initiated his "Reese's Bucket List" page on Facebook to help people in need.

      Some teens have made international headlines with their bucket lists, such as England's Alice Pyne, a cancer patient who began blogging about her bucket list in 2011. By the following year when she died at 16, Pyne had accomplished all 17 plans on her list, including swimming with sharks. Through her blog, she connected 40,000 people with Britain's Bone Marrow Register. Her website opened with the statement: "You only have one life... live it!"

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