Bonding with children: Room decorating
A really fun activity you can do with your cousins, siblings or your own children is to decorate their room with them. This provides you an opportunity to hang out with them, get to know them and also have a very important end goal in mind, sleep. It can be quite challenging at times to get your children to bed and to stay there while they fall asleep!! It can be a hair-pulling moment and if you have access to their room and have a little bit of the family budget to spare, maybe it’s time to decorate their room into a comfortable, safe and sleep-beckoning environment.
Here’s a list of do’s:
1. Do consider the logistics of a project. It is something that a family can do together, and the logistics can be explained to your child as well. For example, when I was a child, my parents and I decided to make my own curtains. They discussed budget with me and told me how much I could spend and they took me to Divisoria (a bargain place in the Philippines) so I could go around and look at fabric. I ended up picking sunflowers in a blue background (really cheap fabric but colorful and relaxing) and I was in budget! We bought some foam and some wooden boards and staple gunned away. I think I was 10 or 11. In order to be appropriate with the age of your child, you have to think about what you want them to learn with the room decorating project. For my parents, it was budgeting and handling money. So, two birds with one stone!
2. Do consider a concept. If your child faces challenges with sleeping at night, maybe making a room personal will help them. I had cousins who have a hard time with the dark, so a project would be night lights but they loved the feeling of camping, so a small light and ‘fake sticks’ did the trick. Another cousin loved the idea of light dancing in a film strip, it kept her entertained enough to keep the nightlight on and stay in her bed until sleep took over. Again, consider age of the child. It is not fair to yell at your child for being scared of the dark, but you must also be firm about bed time or you’re going to be stuck every night. Intentionality is key, and a solid yet flexible room concept helps that.
3. Do Shop around: I’m a big fan of frugal, and one can find nifty things at swap meets, thrift stores or garage sales. It just takes time and a little patience. Dollar stores are also teeming with great finds of things you can add to your child’s room, for example, a tent can be a substitute for a headboard.
4. Do sacrifice your time: I know, life gets busy, but children are blessings so prioritize your family. It will count, you know. :) Besides, you realize how much you can know about somebody just by being committed when you hang out with them. This formula works well with children too! They will appreciate all the effort.
5. Do consider the color palette: Color sets the mood of a room, and it also helps the temperature control. Also, if you don’t want to do a paint job, there are many alternative such as paintings, fabric decor, etc.
6. Do consider safety: Creativity has its limits, right? Consider your child’s safety in her room. It must be a place that makes her want to stay safe and keeps her safe.
7. Everything can be a teachable moment when you make it to be: I think that’s pretty self-explanatory. This can be a good opportunity to talk about bedtime rules, fear of the dark, sleeping by themselves, etc.
Here are some don’ts:
1. Don’t go overboard: We can all get a little happy seeing all those interior design websites online, but you have to remember this principle: Things get old (they need to be maintained so more money!) and interests wane. So if one day, your dinosaur loving tyke suddenly starts liking race cars, your room concept must be not too luxurious to adapt to his changing interests.
2. Don’t put a slide, please!: I know this is going to make me sound like a dictator-adult female teacher, but bedrooms are primarily for beds and for sleeping. As an adult, you are primarily responsible for making sure your children are not overly stimulated in their bedroom. An example is putting a slide in their room, they are going to want to play all the time. The trick is to make their room comfy for sleeping and hanging out, but they have the outdoors to play and the living room to play video games and such. A beautiful gift to give your children early on is to value rest and sleep.
3. Don’t make it too adult-friendly: Put enough things in your child’s room that are educational, please don’t put fragile things that you don’t want broken. Your child must be able to explore their room without you getting too upset. For younger children, you can put shelves or bins lower, maybe even have a toy chest, for your child to be independent in cleaning their space. It takes more effort, but remember, your child is not staying a child forever, so they must learn how to be responsible for their own stuff.
4. Don’t rush it: It takes time to revamp a room, so don’t stress yourself up too much. Sometimes, it starts with a bed. I know my room revamp started when I was 9 because i finally got my own bed (it was a hand me down but I didn’t care at all); it was a good change from sleeping on a mat. my first curtains came when I was 10 or 11 so it did take awhile to have the spare money to do so, but my dolls and my books were secure by age 7 (obviously where my priorities were). Enjoy the time with your child, your sibling or cousin, it’s once in a life time!
Here a three pictures of my web favorites:
