How to to transition a grown child’s bedroom — without any drama

06/05/2024

When Lizzie Haney returned to her parents’ home near Grand Rapids, Mich., for her first Christmas break from college in Chicago, she discovered two changes in her room.

The first — her mother’s “adult-ification” of the space, taking down old posters and adding new, more sophisticated bedding and decor — felt like a loving gesture, a nod to Lizzie’s maturing tastes. The other felt like a personal attack.

Her dad “had put some of his suits and things in her closet,” says Haney’s mother, Dana Hoebeke. “It was empty. She’d taken everything with her. But she’d brought clothes home with her, obviously, so she came back out, and she was like: ‘What’s that stuff doing in my closet? Get it out of here!’”

Haney, a self-proclaimed neatnik, had a rough first semester living with two less-than-tidy roommates. So even this practical appropriation of her usually ordered closet rankled.

“Coming home … that first time definitely rattled me,” says Haney, 24, who adds that her reaction may have been tempered had her parents given her a heads-up. “Transparency probably would have been nice.”

Talking through planned changes to a childhood bedroom can certainly avoid hurt feelings. But therapists say this kind of collaboration can also serve as a way to help parents and grown children transition into a new, markedly different phase of their relationship.

The benefits of working together

“When children become young adults, both parties must negotiate a new version of their parent-child relationship,” says Nanette Freedland, a family therapist in the San Francisco Bay Area who regularly counsels empty nesters.

Specifically, young adult children are experiencing a post-adolescent round of what psychologists call “individuation,” wherein they establish themselves as separate, independent entities. Parents are decentered as the primary authority in the child’s life, and the young adult becomes responsible for more, or all, of their own decisions.

In this moment, including a grown child in the conversation about how you might repurpose their room (or even a part of it) can smooth the way for this shift, because it demonstrates respect for them as a mature adult.

“It’s almost a representation of what we want to do in our adult relationships, which is talking about expectations and desires,” says Tracy Dalgleish, a family therapist in Ottawa and the author of the book “I Didn’t Sign Up for This.”

Inviting the young adult’s feedback reaffirms their new role within the family, so both child and parent can shift gears into a relationship that feels more peerlike. Plus, conversations about a childhood room can act as a gateway to more difficult topics, such as whether the parents plan to downsize and sell their home altogether, or what the arrangement would be if the grown child unexpectedly needs to return. “It’s wonderful grist for the mill to talk about,” Freedland says.

How to transition the room

Parents should approach conversations about a childhood bedroom gently, but also with an eye toward problem-solving, says therapist and interior designer Anita Yokota, author of the book “Home Therapy.” She suggests language such as: “‘Okay, if you still want your childhood twin bed there, then can we make space for the sewing machine here?’ It’s about negotiating the space, and emphasizing that, ‘We’re not throwing you out, but we’re transitioning the space, since there’s a new season now in our family.’”

Two possible entry points for collaboration are:

Shopping for a new bed. Your grown child will probably still sleep in their old room when they return for visits, so this is a great way to give them a say in their comfort. Yokota suggests considering a Murphy bed, which is again on trend, thanks to the flexibility it provides. “When [the homeowner] does need someone to sleep in the room, they can pull down the bed, and it can still really be stylish.”

Choosing a new paint color. Although parents and adult children probably won’t agree on every design detail, selecting a paint color can be a fun and simple way to take one step toward a room’s renovation. Start by talking about current favorites and what moods different hues evoke, then grab some swatches and see where the conversation goes.

When a grown child resists change

“Occasionally, [parents] are surprised by their young adult saying: ‘You cannot touch anything in that room. Everything in there is sacred,’” says Freedland, who notes that this may indicate that the child is feeling insecure about their new stage in life. “It’s a really scary thing to just leave home and cut ties.”

If this happens, Freedland advises pausing the room conversation. “Parents should take the time to learn what is troubling their young adult,” she says.

However, Dalgleish notes that a failed first attempt shouldn’t mark the end of the discussion. “In the parenting role, we need to understand that we go back again,” she says. “Just because it’s an uncomfortable conversation, that doesn’t mean we don’t have it.”

Haney’s discontent during her first semester at college, for example, probably contributed to the intensity of her response to her dad’s suits, she says. But they stayed in the closet, anyway. “My parents were firm that he needed more space, and because I wasn’t using half the closet, it wasn’t actually hurting or inconveniencing me in any way,” she says.

Keeping the conversation open-ended

Ensuring that grown children understand that they always have a place, should they need it, has become a parenting mantra in many families, and for good reason. Some era-specific challenges for today’s young adults include: the long-term economic burden of college loans; a housing supply and affordability crisis; and a pandemic that unexpectedly brought many “launched” children back home.

Indeed, during that period, Yokota performed a redesign for a client whose three sons, all in their 30s, moved back home for a variety of reasons, including the loss of a job and a desire to save money. The home was large enough for it to work, Yokota says, but this possibility of being blindsided by unforeseen circumstances is one reason that she stresses the importance of flexibility when reimagining childhood bedrooms.

“Things have just changed so much,” Yokota says. “There’s a lot more ‘in and out’ than before, it feels like. There’s a lot more fluidity.”

But that doesn’t make the mix of grief and excitement that comes with a kid fledging the nest any less intense. Elli Gurfinkel, a nurse in Ann Arbor, Mich., says he knew that he and his wife had every right to make unilateral changes to their daughter’s room when she left home a few years ago. But talking it through as a family — what Maya, their daughter, might still want from the room, where she would sleep when visiting, and how Gurfinkel and his wife planned to age in place — was a means of processing an emotional reality.

“In our minds, it’s her space, … so we felt like we needed permission,” he says. “[The room] had to change in our thoughts and in our perspective, too, now that she’s gone. That’s the sad part for the parents: It’s the physical manifestation of her leaving home, right? … A reminder that she’s moved on. But that’s as it should be.”

Jenn McKee is a writer in Michigan who covers wellness, parenting, and arts and culture.