Should Children Have Their Own Bedrooms?

cakeforbrains

Shamelessly pulling this question from the single parent thread, I'm interested to hear more opinions on this.

I have three boys aged 11, 9 and 2. We have a four bed house so they all have their own room but the oldest two frequently sleep in together by choice.

Still, I've been working on the assumption that at some point soon they're going to need their own space, and I want to take this into consideration when we move (as we are planning to in the next year).

What do you think? Not necessarily about my specific situation, but, is it ok for children to share? For how long? Does it matter if they are different genders?

memoryoftrees

I personally would not have more children than I had bedrooms; ideally, I do think children need their space. It is one thing of course if children choose to share but being forced to due to circumstances is another matter. Again, personally, I would not put children of a different gender together at all and I would want children of the same gender to have their own rooms (or at least the option of their own rooms) by the time they are eight or nine.

Having said that, if the worst thing a child experiences is sharing a room, it isn't as big a deal as all that

lazer

Honestly - No i don't think they do.

As i said in the other thread, I am a girl and shared with my brother until he went to uni (and even then we still shared during holidays)

It was a large room however and my mum put a divider screen in the middle of it, and one bed was at the wall, and the other the other side of the divider, so there was a bit of privacy and we did have our own space in the room.

I actually think its nice to share a room, we had some of our best talks after bedtime.

Where I think it does matter is if there is a big age gap, it wouldn't be ideal for a 2 year old to share with a 16 year old etc, as different bedtimes, older one probably likes a lie in etc.

tanith

You are lucky you have the choice as many don't. I shared with my brother and sisters and came to know harm, my daughters shared a bedroom till early teens and although there was friction it did them no harm to share. Two brothers who don't mind sharing might find it preferable to having rooms of their own, why not ask them?

Valli

I'm one of three sisters; growing up, and moving from various sized houses we all had our own rooms, or two shared. The last time I shared was with my youngest sister as the one in between was doing her O-levels so it was deemed she needed the privacy. By the time we moved from there I had already started work (aged 18); my sister (in the same room) would have been 14 at the time.

cakeforbrains

tanith wrote: »

You are lucky you have the choice as many don't. I shared with my brother and sisters and came to know harm, my daughters shared a bedroom till early teens and although there was friction it did them no harm to share. Two brothers who don't mind sharing might find it preferable to having rooms of their own, why not ask them?

Oh yes, I have asked them. They shared for quite a while when we moved here and then the oldest started lobbying for his own room so we cleared out the spare room and put him in it. I think he likes having his cake and eating it, to be honest.

There are...erm...certain things that teenagers get up to that make sharing less than ideal, surely?

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

If they behave like Siamese Fighting Fish when put together, then they're better off with their own space. But otherwise, no, it's not essential.


ETA: they can masturbate when they are alone in the bathroom, if that's what's bothering you.

Hermia

I think ideally children should have their own rooms and I certainly would not like teenage girls and boys sharing. If you can't stretch to that the next best thing would be to have some method of creating some space for each child. One of my school friends had a horrible time at home. She was very academic and her sister wasn't and would constantly interrupt her when she was reading and studying. It drove her around the bend and she left home as soon as she could!

cakeforbrains

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

If they behave like Siamese Fighting Fish when put together, then they're better off with their own space. But otherwise, no, it's not essential.


ETA: they can masturbate when they are alone in the bathroom, if that's what's bothering you.

Haha! I didn't know how delicate you had to be on this forum! I think I'd rather they masturbated in their own space than shared space - for their sake and mine.

fabforty

Owns room are a 'nice to have', but not a necessity. Some of the things that we (not OP but society in general) now view as essential for our children, are bordering on ridiculous.

fashionlover10

I shared with my brother until I was 14. It wasn't that big a deal but it did have it's downsides. I'm quite a neat and tidy person, my brother isn't. I like to take care of my things, my brother is like a bull in a china shop. By the time I was about 11 sleepovers were a bit awkward unless the other was having a sleepover at their friends.
We didn't actually fight much until we got our own rooms but a lot of that was more to do with our ages when we did move to a bigger place.

The two things that annoyed me most about sharing was having to sleep with the light on (I prefer to sleep in the dark, brother is scared of the dark) and being nagged by my Mum to tidy our room when it was my brothers mess.

If/when I have children I would prefer for them to be able to have their own space, especially if they were different genders or had a big age gap between them.