If you’re a parent with multiple children living in a home that’s a bit too small for your family, you’ve more than likely had to make some of your children share a room. Children sharing bedrooms is quite normal, children often don’t need as much space as us adults do and having your children share a room can be good for their developing social skills.
But as your children enter their pre-teen and eventually teen years, they may be wanting to have a bit more privacy if they’re still sharing a room. If giving your children their own bedrooms isn’t practical for you, it’s important to make some compromises and make some changes to allow them a bit more privacy in a shared room.
So what can you do to give your children sharing bedrooms a bit more privacy? Well read on and get some solid advice on how to do just that!
Add In Privacy Screens
From time to time, one of your children in a shared space will want some alone time for one reason or another, usually kids will go to their bedroom when they want to be alone, but room sharing with a sibling can throw a spanner into the works as they don’t have their own room to retreat to. So, by adding in some sort of privacy screen down the middle of the bedroom to ensure your child can have some alone time you can give your children a bit more privacy.
All you need to do is buy a long curtain rail to attach to the ceiling down the middle of the room and a curtain to hang from it or hang a cubicle track above their bed with a curtain. When your children are feeling sociable, they can open the curtain, but crucially when they need alone time they can close the curtain for some privacy. If you have bunk beds this can be achieved by attaching curtains to the bunks so they can seclude themselves.
Have Separate Storage
Storage is often a contentious issue for children sharing bedrooms, living in a shared space can make it feel like children don’t have a lot of control over themselves and a little sibling rifling through their possessions may make that feeling even worse for your child.
You can easily avoid fights and temper tantrums by ensuring each child living in a shared room has their own storage space just for them, which should help give them a feeling of privacy knowing their personal items are safe. When your kids get a bit older and they have a bit more trust, you can even give them their own locks for their storage to add more privacy.
Break Sight Lines
Another thing that may make your child feel like they don’t have privacy in a shared room, is if they are always in the sightline of their sibling whom they’re sharing a room with, while a privacy screen would help with this, you can make some softer separation by breaking up sightlines from each side of the room.
With some careful furniture and storage placement you can break up sightlines to give a bit more privacy to your children. Just something as simple as putting a desk against the foot of their bed or a set of drawers next to the bed, should help break the sight lines and provide an extra bit of privacy for your children.
