Getting Kids Involved in Redecorating Their Room

For kids, their room is a safe haven and a fun place to spend some alone time. If they are involved in redecorating it can also be a place they love.

You can thumb through decorating magazines and find kids’ rooms that leave you breathless: white carpet; a canopy bed; a neat computer desk, quirky toy storage, and display areas. But the first question you should be asking yourself is: How would my child view this room?

How can you balance your personal design tastes with what your child wants? Will the room grow with your child?

Here are some hints for making your child’s room his personal space.

Let them help. Whether it is a single or a shared room, let your child help pick out paint, pictures, furniture, and flooring. Offering a range of two or three choices makes it less overwhelming for your child and lets him make “final decisions”. If his favorite color is orange or purple, for example, consider a feature wall or trim in his favorite color.

Make sure the room can grow with your child unless you are considering frequent renovations.His favorite characters and colors today may well be discarded tomorrow. Let him choose bedspread and sheets instead of carpet or walls. These items are going to be periodically changed. They are the easiest (and least costly) ways to update the décor.

Consider a room theme—such as cars, trains, spacecraft, cartoon characters, or dogs—that fits your child’s interests.

Make sure there is space to display your child’s treasures safely and that he can reach it.

Make way for work areas for homework, games, construction projects, art work… and for storage of toys, construction sets…Make it as easy as possible for your child to clean up and to locate what he is looking for.

Involve your child in finding accessible spots for his clothing. Let him help you make labels for things. Bins, shelves and hangers he can reach are ideal ways to encourage “a place for everything and everything in its place!”

While you are redecorating, it is an excellent time to take inventory and decide what should go and what should stay. Make this a parent-child activity. Use three bins or boxes for: things we are keeping; things we can donate to Goodwill and things that should go to recycle or trash.

If your child is involved and given choices at every stage of the redecorating,it will instill a sense of pride and ownership.