Honesty's the Best Policy When Involving Children in Planning a New Home

For example, Whiteside said, your child might be crazy about Mickey Mouse at 6, but you know that by 12 he will have moved on to something else and hate the Mickey Mouse wallpaper. Channeling serial passions into something more easily changed, such as a bedspread, can diffuse likely conflict down the road.

When your elementary-school-age child insists on something you think he won't like in a few months, never mind a few years, emphasize the consequences of his decision, suggested Georgia DeGangi, a clinical psychologist, also in Kensington.

"A parent can say something like, 'If you choose this color you must live with it until we can afford to repaint it.' "

By the time your children reach middle school, privacy is a big deal, DeGangi said. They spend more time in their rooms and are likely to want more say in what they look like.

For many teenagers, the desire to decorate their rooms is mingled with their struggle to become autonomous and separate themselves from their family. They want to draw a strong line between their room and the rest of the house. Some teens want to accomplish this by making everything in their space black, including walls, ceiling, carpeting, doors and trim.

But if parents have any concern about depression, Snyder said, they should push for an alternative. Research has shown that color affects mood, and black or other very dark colors are not a healthy choice for a child who has a tendency to depression. In this situation, she said, a parent might suggest other ways to differentiate a teen's room that are equally eye-catching and compelling, such as a single black wall, black accents, artwork or even a splashy bedspread.

Fairness also comes into decisions about bedrooms in a new house, DeGangi said. If one room is obviously nicer than another because it is bigger and has more windows or a window seat, the parents must walk a narrow line, she said. "For the child who didn't get the nicer room, it can be as devastating as discovering that they got left out of a parent's will. The rifts created over the bedrooms can last a lifetime."

Sometimes there can be sensible reasons for deciding who gets which room. For example, if a younger child has nighttime fears, it's reasonable to put the younger one closer to the parents, she said. But it will be more acceptable if the parents tell the kids that when this changes, they will switch bedrooms. And in the meantime, if there's some other special space in the house -- a study alcove or a window seat in another room -- the parents can give that to the older child.

In the shared spaces of the new house, especially the family room, parents can make each child feel more comfortable, even if they don't help select any of the furnishings or colors, by giving each his or her own special "cubby," Snyder said.

In the context of a family room, this might be a base cabinet for toys and a bookshelf for books or school art projects that a child wants to display. "It's a great way for each family member to feel ownership," she said. "It has the added benefit of helping the kids stay organized."

Wanting a new house to look really nice, however, can have unintended consequences, DeGangi said. "I hear a lot of kids say, 'We have a house, but we don't live in all the rooms. We can't go into the living room or formal dining room; it's not for us.' "

While the parents understandably want their house to look presentable when guests visit, designating whole areas as off-limits says to their kids it's not really their house and they don't know how to behave. Most kids, by the time they're 6, know they shouldn't bring finger paints into the living room, but they should be able to use it for sitting quietly and reading or playing a board game on the floor.

Katherine Salant can be contacted via her Web site,www.katherinesalant.com.

2006Katherine Salant Distributed by Inman News Features