Helping Your Kids Share a Bedroom

Whether you’ve got another child on the way, live in a smaller apartment, or want to create an extra common space, you may decide that your kids need to share a bedroom. Read on to discover how to help the experience bring them closer, rather than create a territory war.

The pros
As a parent, consider some of the benefits of having your kids share a bedroom. You kids may learn to work together better. They may develop negotiation skills for solving problems and learn to better respect each other’s property. This can all go a long way toward making your children better socialized with each other and the world at large.

The cons
Gauge the temperaments of your kids. Think about how your children interact, and consider whether sharing a space is realistic. The need for privacy among older kids is a consideration, especially when sharing space also means involuntarily sharing friends. Once opposite-sex siblings reach a certain age, sharing a bedroom may be a less healthy idea.

Talk about it
Companionship and the prospect of sharing clothes or toys may help change a resistant child’s mind. For a child who has only known his own room, the prospect of sharing a bedroom with a baby brother or sister may be an unwelcome one. Talk to your child about the ways that she can help her new sibling and take on new responsibilities. Remind your children about the benefits of the extra space: their shared bedroom means a dedicated play or family room in the apartment.

Divide it up
The two biggest roadblocks to happy room-sharing are space and privacy. To guarantee the former, label your children’s respective areas with a label maker, decorative stickers or signs. Set up separate bins or storage units on opposite sides of the room or in different closets, if possible. Giving your kids a sense of control over what is available to them — and helping them keep track of their things — could be real benefits to bedroom-sharing.
To help ensure privacy, especially among older children, you might allow for assigned times of the day when each one can have the apartment bedroom to herself. Invite the other child to relax with music or television in the family or living room, or visit a friend’s house, while her sibling spends her private room time.

Set the rules
To help reduce bickering, talk about the basic rules of respect with your kids. To start them off, you may even want to post a list of shared bedroom rules — items like asking before using the other’s toys, respecting the other’s choices and opinions, and reducing noise when the other is trying to study.
Whether you have happy or horrified memories of sharing a room with a sibling, weigh the pros and cons carefully for your children, considering their gender, temperament and age. You might be surprised by their willingness to give it a try, and they may be surprised by how it actually works for them.