<p>I would like to get advice from parents on this matter- I already posted in hs life but figure I might get some more constructive answers here. </p>
<p>Original post: My family is large and we have limited bedrooms. Because two opposite sex siblings are getting too old to continue sharing we are rearranging which children go in which room. </p>
<p>In almost all of the possible rearrangements my little sister and I would move into a larger bedroom. I am sixteen and have had my own small room all my life. She is nine and has shared bedrooms. </p>
<p>I’m okay with sharing- as much as I’d like to keep my own bedroom it’s not realistic and would be unfair to my brothers. My sister and i get along I’m actually kind of excited about getting a decent closet and a larger room. </p>
<p>Do any of you share rooms? What are your thoughts on sharing? What are your tips for keeping things sane - for example, keeping them out of your stuff, divvying up the room, finding privacy and quiet study time, etc? </p>
<p>tl;dr, I have never shared a room before and will soon share with a sister seven years younger. Any advice?</p>
<p>I shared with my sister (7 years older than me) for years. Because of the age difference we had different concerns so we mostly got along great and didn’t bother each others stuff. We had a large dresser with lots of drawers so mostly that was the divvying up part.</p>
<p>When my kids shared the biggest issue was whether a nightlight should be on or not. I imagine the two of you might have different bedtimes, so you might need to figure out how best not to wake her up if she is already asleep. I think the important thing is to establish some ground rules, what spaces are private, what spaces are shared. What’s okay to borrow and what isn’t. Make sure it isn’t just you setting the rules, find out what her concerns are too.</p>
<p>I shared a bedroom with my brother all of our lives. Back in my day almost everyone shared a bedroom. Sometimes there were 3 or more in one room. Sharing a room was one of my best memories as a kid. We would stay up late at night and talk. We had different friends but that time sharing a room created a bond that we still have.</p>
<p>I bet your little sister will look back on her time sharing a room with you and it will be a highlight for her. You should realize the special bond you can have will also bring you much more than you sacrifice in sharing.</p>
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<li>Young children generally like a concrete signal so they know what to do. For study time, you can agree upon something you can wear (a particular baseball cap or scarf). When she sees you’re wearing it, it automatically means “please don’t interrupt me.” She then doesn’t have to go through launching into a conversation and you having to tell her not to talk. It’s less rejection for her. It can help you too, since there might be times you want to read (or be on computer) when you don’t mind being interrupted, and other times not. To her, it’d all look the same – except with that signal she knows what to do.</li>
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<p>Of course, she can have the same right, too, even though you’re the one more likely to exercise it.</p>
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<li><p>Can you each make one shelf that is for anything you don’t want the other to touch? </p></li>
<li><p>Wanting private time with your friends might be the hardest on her. Maybe do that by prior agreement; “give me one hour so I can talk to my b.f.f. and I’ll spend some time with you later today to do X, just you and me.”</p></li>
<li><p>Ask your sister to come to you first when something’s bothering her about the arrangement, as compared to running off to the parents. Let her know the two of you can figure out how to solve most things yourselves, anyway. </p></li>
<li><p>Between my two sons (6 years apart) “getting into my candy” was something they couldn’t resolve. The hiding places were very intricate, but so were their sleuthing abilities. </p></li>
<li><p>What do you think about knocking on the door before entering? At her age, she’s likely to burst in. Maybe you both want to do this as a courtesy to each other. Even if the answer is almost always “yes” it is nice to have some warning.</p></li>
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<p>I agree that your little sister will treasure these years, as you sound open to it.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the ideas! I think I am going to write this all down and tape it to the wall for the first week when we are getting used to sharing- especially the suggestion about having a certain article of clothing to indicate quiet time. </p>
<p>We will have different beds and dressers and I might even get to keep my desk to myself, so having space to put our things shouldn’t be too much of a concern. </p>
<p>My mother also emphasizes that it will be beneficial because we will grow closer- I am confident that this will be the case, as opposed to growing sick if each other! </p>
<p>She wakes up significantly later than I do for school. Does anybody have any creative ideas on how to resolve this, or is it just a manner of learning to be quiet on the morning?</p>
<p>Bookworm, my H and I have always had different sleep schedules. I often get up 1-2 hours before he does. I always get my clothes around at night before I go to sleep and put them on a bookshelf by the door. I can find my way from bed to the door in the dark, just pick up my clothes, then go shower and get ready for the day in the bathroom instead of my room. Maybe something similiar could work for you?</p>
<p>I shared a room with my younger sister for a long time-- I got used to picking out my clothes the night before, setting them out somewhere easily accessible, and taking them out with me to get dressed in the bathroom instead of my room. My sister and I got used to hearing each others alarms and eventually stopped being disturbed by them-- same as how it was when I had a roommate in college.</p>
<p>Make sure you have a conversation with her about making the rules and include her in the process. You don’t want to make her feel like you are /letting/ her move into YOUR room-- she has just as much say in the rules as you do and you need to make sure you don’t accidentally overstep without meaning to. It’s hard when you’re older, but try to keep yourselves on equal footing as best as you can. It’ll make it easier to keep things fair.</p>
<p>You are lucky to have your own dresser and desk. My older sister and I had to share- one year apart in age. I liked my half of the dresser top nearly empty but she consisitently took over my space. She also didn’t understand my need for darkness and left the bedroom door open to the well lit hall- which faced my bed, not hers. She didn’t like my talking to her when we went to bed- she just wanted to sleep and I wanted to talk. This reminds me of so many childhood traumas- middle kid with the brother who got his own room. You and your sister are far enough apart in age you lead separate lives- far less sibling rivalry conflicts.</p>
<p>This thread is bringing back memories of when my boys were younger. We had to move out of our house temporarily while we were doing some major remodeling, and the boys had to share a bedroom in small apartment. </p>
<p>The boys came up with some very even handed rules on sharing their space…but the youngest still felt that things weren’t very fair, because the big brothers didn’t WANT to get in to his things in the same way he wanted to get in to theirs.</p>
<p>I finally had to coach the older brothers to occasionally ask if they could play with the youngest brother’s LEGOS, army guys, whatever, just so that sometimes he had the power of saying yes or no. And I would sometimes arrange it so that the younger brother had the use of the bedroom and the other brothers had to be inconvenienced for a while.</p>
<p>But now the boys all look back on that 3 or 4 months as a highlight of their growing up…they really enjoyed being together in a way I didn’t expect.</p>
<p>Take another tip from the school world that your little sister inhabits. To develop a set of rules, begin by asking, “What kind of room do we both want to have, to come home to every day?” As she and you answer it by qualities, such as "safe; friendly; quiet; pretty; sometimes fun…"THEN you two can come up with perhaps 4-5 rules that will accomplish those feelings. For example, “safe” would lead to a rule about “keep a clear walkway to the door.” “Pretty” can generate a rule about tidying up. </p>
<p>After the two of you come up with a list of rules, have her write them up on a poster…or you can print them out by computer and have her decorate the borders. Post that somewhere. When she sees her own handwriting or artwork, she’ll remember she helped write the rules. </p>
<p>Sometime down the road, when you and she are in a conflict over her (or your) clothes piled on the floor, it’s easier to say, “hey we promised each other a pretty room, right? Those clothes are keeping it from being pretty.” Writing the rules down will help your sister remember that you once had that conversation and you made promises to each other. </p>
<p>It’s a cooperative approach some teachers use on the first day of school. I think it’s worth the hour it’ll take to make these rules and post them, to have a way to solve small conflicts in the future.</p>
<p>Not only did most of the people I knew growing up share a room, most of us shared a bed with said sibling :D. The lucky friends had bunk beds.</p>
<p>It will work out fine as long as the number one rule is to respect each other–along with that means respecting each other’s things in the room. It sounds like you have a great attitude about this and that will go a long way in making this work. Think of it as practice for college too. </p>
<p>Depending on what you have for furniture and the room layout, maybe you can set up the dressers/desks in the middle of the room to create a bit of a wall between the beds so you do have some privacy.</p>
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