I knew something was amiss when the knickknacks — the small bowls, colorful vases, even an unused incense burner — mysteriously appeared in my living room.
It could only mean one thing: My 10-year-old daughter was watching too much HGTV again.
Hope likes to watch those home design shows as much as anything that airs on Disney or Animal Planet. During the early evening down time, Hope and her sister, Grace, are tuned into “Designed to Sell” or “House Hunters.”
A friend’s three daughters are similarly fixated, ignoring popular television for HGTV’s “Landscapers’ Challenge” and “If Walls Could Talk.”
“My kids have never seen ‘American Idol.’ There’s nothing wrong with that show, but my kids are so off the grid, it’s hilarious,” said my friend, Sloane Given. “It’s just not really their thing.”
Vern Yip of “Deserving Design” on HGTV says they’re often stopped by kids. He calls his elementary-school-aged groupies a “funny little fan base.”
Paige Davis, the host of TLC’s “Trading Spaces,” which launched a new season on Saturday, said parents e-mail her about their children’s fixation with the show. (It spawned a Discovery Kids cable channel spinoff, “Trading Spaces: Boys vs. Girls,” in 2003, and repeats still air.)
Given’s 7-year-old, Lyle, inserts her two cents into her parents’ design projects.
“When we did our landscaping project this year, Lyle was so into it,” Given said. “She wanted to see the plans, she wanted to walk around with the architect and she wanted to help pick out plants.”
When Given forgot to include lupines in the yard at Lyle’s request, she ran out and bought two lupines for the little girl’s next birthday.
“What child gets lupine plants for her birthday?” Given said.
Lori Coens of Overland Park, Kan., has an 8-year-old son, Dylan, and an 11-year-old daughter, Hayden, who watch the design shows.
“It’s better than SpongeBob,” said Coens, referring to the popular children’s cartoon on Nickelodeon.
The only problem is sometimes Dylan wants to duplicate what he sees on television, “and I’m not going to put a two-story slide in his bedroom,” said Coens, an interior decorator.
Handling young decorators
Family therapist Karl Rosston of Helena, Mont., supports kids having a space to call their own, and offers some tips.
Monitor: Kids should not be left on their own; they still need a set of rules from which to operate.
“It’s important for parents to provide some guidelines and some structure to it, but not too much,” he said.
Ownership: Allow younger kids to pick out their room colors. Teenagers can have greater say.
Rosston said kids need ownership to nurture their sense of independence.
Judgment: Parents need to avoid criticizing their kids’ decisions, and not just with room redos.
Criticism scars children and the effects last a long time, Rosston said.
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