Who’s in Charge of Your Child’s Décor?

Some thoughts: The child is becoming themselves, differentiating from their family. In a stable, fortunate situation they can be given the opportunity to express and discover their developing self through making decorating decisions in their personal space and getting to live with them. My experience was that, once beyond babyhood, my children were no longer dolls I could dress to my taste but separate people with their own identities to honor. I agree that these can be fulfilled with things like sheets and posters which are relatively easy and inexpensive to change. In fact, it may be further empowering to the child if they have to adhere to a budget and plan to do more for themselves rather than demanding largesse from their parents.

when i was 12, i came home one day to find my parents painting my bedroom pink and green. it felt like an intrusion, a violation. no one cared what i thought. i liked blue and meekly said so. my mother screamed, as usual, and told me i should appreciate what they were doing.

When I was in 8th grade I was gone for 3 days on the annual field trip from my small CT town to Washington DC. When I returned, my mother had wallpapered my room as a surprise. I liked the pattern she chose, but even more, I was overwhelmed by the surprise and effort she put into it. Even now 60 years later, it fills me with love. That is not to say that I didn’t request a more sophisticated makeover a few years later when I was in high school!

This strikes me as an obscene discussion when the world has so many children without homes.

My dad was onto accent walls before accent walls were A Thing. When my sister moved into her own room when I was 10, he said he'd wallpaper one wall and paint the rest, and I got to choose the wallpaper. But, he said, I'd have to live with it until I was 18. It was a good quality wallpaper in a simple floral pattern, and dad painted the walls a green that was in the wallpaper. It was perfect and not too trendy.

Great ideas, but so many landlords of NY rental apartments require that the walls of every room be white, regardless of what the parents or kids want.

Around 1960, after my grandfather died, the larger family decided that my parents and I should move in with my grandmother. She needed taking care of. A little room became mine. It was decorated with plain furniture, an old, small oriental rug, and Disneyland wallpaper. If I remember correctly, the wallpaper was beige with darker beige, and orange, depictions of magic castles, Frontierland, and possibly that large banyan tree from "Swiss Family Robinson." I was indifferent to it, but I loved my bookshelves and the wind rattling the old wooden windows when it stormed. When my parents replaced the windows, I missed the rattling. I grieved.

First the "adults" spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a house. Then they begrudge letting a kid personalize their space by doing something that can be reversed for a few hundred dollars. Doesn't make sense to me.

Even though it's hard for me to imagine being able to buy a new house AND completely furnish it with new stuff, I would never do a kid's room without some input from that kid. (I am assuming that the kid is old enough to speak.) Even kids who don't care much are empowered by having a choice--do you want the green one or the blue one? Good rule of thumb here--Does you child care at all how you dress him or her? If so, allow some choices when decorating the room.

My sister and I always shared a room, and the most important "decoration" was the imaginary lines in the middle of the room and in the middle of the closet to identify yours and mine. I did make a bookshelf myself from a piece of wood I found somewhere and some rope. I still like the design and see something similar everywhere.

My kids ‘decorate’ this own rooms with treasures from favorite beaches, rock collections, souvenirs from road trips they spent their own money on, plants they have started from seeds they have saved and their own artwork. Our focus and values are more about ‘experiences’ and not fancy designs or trends in style. My kids have friends with these fancy rooms and always return home and say they are thankful how our house feels much more cozy. Time will tell what they value as adults.

I don't understand not involving a child in the design/decor of their room. It's the parents to see how to make it fit the budget.

My children's rooms were their rooms and sanctuaries. If they wanted something we were honest about affording (or not being able to afford) the cost. They were told to do what they wanted within our economic means. Or youngest (at age 10) painstakingly painted pin stripes on her walls - and a year later painstakingly painted over them. But they owned their space and used their spaces to develop into confident children adolescents, and adults. You can hire a professional decorator, or just limit the budget and let them deal with it.

While my daughter was at camp one summer I decorated my daughters bedroom. I'd secretly planned it for months looking for all the perfect items to include gold star drapes, wallpaper, sheets, duvet cover, etc. I painstakingly wallpapered that room myself because I couldn't find anyone who could do the work on my schedule. I took three days off from work to paint, wallpaper and have carpeting put down. Daughter came home and a week later and wrote in indelible ink across her bedroom wall, "I hate my mother". I let those words stay there until she moved out ten years later. A few years after she moved we started family counseling.

This made me remember how I smiled at the Times article last month about Bette Midler's penthouse going on the market. Gorgeous understated decor in muted neutrals - except for one bedroom with turquoise striped wallpaper, a red rug and huge primitive modernist artwork. An alcove was painted an orangish red with a green upright piano. Times's tactful comment "One of the more colorful rooms in the penthouse, which was largely decorated in soft, neutral colors." I'd bet money that's their now thirty-ish daughter's childhood bedroom.

When I was a child I shared a bedroom with my two sisters who were younger than me. We had quilts that our grandma made and blankets that my mom referred to as "army blankets." They were a funny dark green color. I think my dad actually brought them home from the army. I got a chuckle out this article. Oh, to have had a room like the one the child who asked her mother to redo it because it stressed her out.

My tween didn’t want pink anymore and asked for aqua and grey. Looks much more like a big girl room now. We definitely involved her in the process, and Pinterest was terrific for inspiration. Good idea to involve the kids.

The opening anecdote gave me a chuckle. Sometimes when parents are denying themselves whimsy and trying to create the "perfect" austere house, the child's room becomes an outlet for all that pent-up playfulness. I had no money to furnish my house when my daughter was a child, but it was inexpensive to do her room and create a magical space. Or not—it was a couple of years before we had to repaint everything and take down the pink canopy and recover the bean bag with a more sober fabric. Her choices lasted until she graduated from college and moved across the country for her new job.

A story from the autobiography of the Russian 19th century mathematician, Sofia Kovalevskaya, comes to mind: she attributed her easy mastery of math to the wallpaper in her room that was the old math lecture notes of her elder brother. Who knows, perhaps child's future can in fact be influenced by the room decor?

"What happens when a child begs for a deep, saturated color that would be difficult to paint over should their tastes change?" Speaking as an adult who's put a few wacky colors on walls in recent years... any color can be painted over. That's what primer is for.

First-world problems. When I was a child, my parents (children of the depression) furnished my room with cast-off, hand-me-down furnishings, supplemented with a (very) few items that had to be purchased for the purpose - such as an inexpensive throw rug or two. I got to pick the paint color - as long as it wasn't a shade that would be hard to cover with a couple of coats when I wanted a change. If friends or I got a little rough with any of the furniture, it wasn't a problem, since it was already aged, scuffed and nicked. It was all very comfortable, and I had no trouble retreating to my room when I wanted a haven. No "themes" or "vision" required.

When I was 8 (1960), my mom transformed my room into the dream little girl’s haven she’d never had - all white, frilly ruffles and pastel yellow. Trouble was even then I hated that stuff but I was a little kid. When I turned 13, my parents were getting neutral beige broadloom for the house. I spoke up and said I wanted bright Kelly green, and light green walls, and zebra striped bedspread and curtains. My awesome parents didn’t flinch and let me redo the room in my own way. They didn’t even mind when I covered my door in tin foil! Self-expression doesn’t have to mean big bucks, but letting a child feel they can go their own way and not be ridiculed or scolded was a very important lesson for me as I entered adolescence.

At about age 10 my daughter wanted to change from her "sweet little girl" room to a tropical beach theme. I was game. It was just a change of rug, comforter & curtains. I had to put my foot down when she objected to a "sand colored" rug because she had been under the impression I would fill her room with real beach sand!

The idea of a "decorated" child's room is odd to me. I think it's a product of the Instagram age. When I was growing up everyone had some colorful elements in their rooms, but no one's room looked like a Crate and Kids catalogue. It was basically some "kids" white furniture with stuff taped on the walls - posters, cut outs from magazine, pictures, etc. Now with Insta every kid's bedroom needs to look professionally designed.

Selling that $700 braided rug that is leaning up against the wall would mean the daughter could have the $200 pallet bed without giving up her birthday gift. Just an idea. Actually, it sounds like the daughter came up with a rather sophisticated look and style for a young person, one that is likely to wear well for at least a few years.