Bedroom Ideas for Foster Children

Foster placements are often short-term, and they can be very regular, with children arriving in your home not long after another has left. Unfortunately, many children need care, and foster careers provide a valuable service. This means that the bedroom that you prepare for a foster child needs to be ready to go, and suitable for different ages and genders. If you are preparing to welcome your first foster child or looking to make some improvements to the room that you use, here are some bedroom ideas to help you.

Opt for Gender-Neutral Colours

While foster careers get a foster care allowance, you won’t want to spend more than you need to on bedroom décor. To minimize costs, and make your life easier, make sure you keep walls and furniture neutral. This will also make it easier for children to add things like posters and accessories to make the room their own.

Add Pops of Colour

Keeping the walls neutral means that you can add pops of color to linens and accessories like lamps and frames. These little splashes of color will make the room look and feel more homely and child-friendly, instead of looking like an unloved empty room. Bright colors like yellows, greens and oranges appeal to both boys and girls, and most age groups.

Go Big

It can be hard to choose furniture for a room that’s going to play home to children of different ages. But the thing to remember is that aside from babies who need specific things like a cot, small children can use bigger things, but bigger children cannot use smaller things.

A small child can sleep in a standard single bed, but a teenager cannot fit into a toddler bed. A small child will be able to use a normal desk, with an adjustable seat, and reach low shelves on a bookshelf, but a teenager will struggle to sit comfortably at a mini desk or on a tiny chair. Choose standard-size furniture as much as possible to save yourself money and time.

Keep it Simple

You might be tempted to add lots of decorations and accessories to a child’s bedroom. But this can be overwhelming, it makes it hard to appeal to everyone, and it can mean that there’s no space for a child to add personal touches and make it their own. Instead, keep things simple, furnishing with the basics, and leaving plenty of drawers, shelves, and wall space free.

Add Cosy Home Comforts

Home comforts like blankets, cushions and teddy bears make a space feel warm, welcoming, and safe, which are things your foster child needs more than anything else.

Give them Space to Be Creative

Creative activities like drawing and painting are great. Creativity can be a huge mental health and mood burst and for children an important way to express themselves. Make sure your foster children’s bedroom has plenty of things like pens, pencils, and pads so that they can explore their creativity freely.

A child’s bedroom is their private space in a busy household. It’s more than just somewhere for them to keep their stuff; it’s their haven from the world. This is even more important for foster children. Make sure the room that you create is warm and welcoming, but also that there’s room for children to make it their own.  

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash