Decorating Your Teens Bedroom

I remember when I was a teen I wanted my walls pink and purple. I’m not talking pale colors, I’m talking loud, vibrant colors. My folks allowed me to paint the walls and I spent hours in my room, loving my pink and purple walls. My folks did not like the walls at all and my door was always closed, but I was happy.

Neither of my own kids ever asked for paint, instead they wanted things on the walls.

When I asked both of my kids the number one thing they wanted on their walls, the answer was pictures.

Pictures come in so many forms and can be used in so many ways. The first are photos taken from a camera. We all remember learning "nouns can be people, places or things." Well photos can be people, places or things. One of my daughters has always used notebooks that have covers that allow her to place photos of her friends on the cover.

When putting photos on walls, you can put them onto a bulletin board. You can make them into a collage on poster board, or you can hang them one by one in a pattern of your own.

Another form of photos are photos that come from magazines. These photos again, might be people, or they might be places, or they might be things. Photos from magazines help represent those things that your teen likes. It might be photos of a singer, or photos of a t.v. star, or pictures of a sports star. Perhaps your teen is looking forward to a summer trip to Europe. They might want to put up photos they find of European things.

One more form of photos are CD covers. Teens love music. Teens buy CD’s. CD’s come with covers. The covers of CD’s are photos of people, places of things.

So, next time your teen says "I want to redecorate my room", keep an open mind and see if you can’t allow them to do it their way.

Audrey Okaneko is mom to two girls. She can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or visited at http://www.recipe-barn.com