by Randa Morris

Created on: November 04, 2008   Last Updated: December 13, 2010

Redecorating a teen's room can be a positive experience. It's an activity that can even draw teens and parents closer together, if parents are willing to make the effort to be sensitive to, and thoughtful about, their teens needs and wants, during the process. In this article you will find helpful tips to make the redecorating project fun and interesting for both you and your teenager.

Be Aware

Teens both want and need a place in the home that they feel is truly their own. A teen's bedroom should be something like a sanctuary for them. It needs to be a place that they can escape to, gaining privacy from the rest of the world. It's a place to think, and to feel, as well as to express their ever-changing and emerging selves, as they go through the difficult task of transitioning from childhood to adult life. In order to be able to redo a teen's room without a fight, then, a parent has to be willing to concede that the teen's room is just that, his room.

Suggest, Don't Demand

Even if your teen's room is the most disgusting area on the planet, one that should be condemned for moral indecency, as well as both visual and nasal assault, demanding that your teen change it is probably the least helpful thing you can do. Instead of taking this "sure to fail" approach when broaching the subject of redecorating, try one of the following:

1. If I won the lottery, and I could have any kind of room I wanted, I would have... Tell your teen about your dream bedroom. Ask him what he would have in his dream room. When he hits on a good idea, jump in, and say something like: "Hey that would be cool. I bet we could do something like that!" In this way your teen thinks it was his idea all along. Instead of a knock-down, drag-out fight, you have a willing partner, who's ready to take on the challenge of redecorating.

2. Leave catalogs around the house, with pictures of the kinds of rooms that you think your teen might like. If you happen to catch your teen browsing over breakfast, try to get a conversation going about what he likes, and what he doesn't. Use I statements. "I'd love to have a deep burgundy on my bedroom walls. What color would you like, if you had the chance to redo your room?" Don't shoot down your teen's suggestions. Be willing to let him express his own tastes, and preferences. Remember that he is the one who will be living with them.

3. Go on a shopping trip together. Be sure that you browse the "House and Home" section of the store, with your teen. Pay attention

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