Tiffany Raiford
There is a certain type of torture and pain that only those who have kids that share a room will understand. Thank goodness for me, this is something from the past. When my husband and I were just a few months shy of welcoming our twins into our family, we moved our then almost 3-year-old daughter into her almost 6-year-old sister’s bedroom so that they could share a room. We were in the process of either building or buying a larger home, and we knew the girls would spend anywhere from 6 months to a year in the same room, and we thought we could do this.
Oh. Em. Gee.
Hindsight, my friends; hindsight. What a literal nightmare. Two kids with nearly three years between them, at their particular stages in life at that particular time in their life – welcoming two new babies into the family, losing their independence and experiencing so much life change all at once was difficult on them. They did not do well. They complained. They fought. They argued. They did everything but actually kill one other or us, though sometimes it felt like they might actually do both. Thankfully, we’ve been in our new house for 10 months now, and it’s been 10 months of blissful quiet without anyone sharing a room. Everyone has their own space, their own room and their own privacy, and my husband and I no longer feel as if we are living in the middle of a war zone. Just kidding; we have four kids. We live in the middle of a war zone.
If you find yourself in a situation in which your kids might soon share a room, understand first what might happen. Understand what you might listen to all the time. All. The. Time. I’m sorry, but this is your future. You’re welcome for warning you ahead of time. It gives you opportunity to head to the store for more wine or at least join a wine club that mails that stuff right to your front door.
She’s touching me
Maybe if you ignore it long enough they’ll become so annoyed with one another touching one another that one will knock the other out cold long enough for you to enjoy a little peace and quiet.
She looked at me
Because in the world of children, being looked at is sometimes the worst thing that ever happened in life. Take it from me, make a rule that states that children are not to look at one another in their room. This will make them feel as if they are breaking a rule when they do it, so they’ll do it all the time and never tell you because they’ll team up against you.
She’s touching my stuff
I’d suggest buying two of everything to eliminate this issue, but that does not resolve anything. Trust me. I know this from experience.
She won’t get off my bed
Someone has to sleep up top or on the bottom or on the right or on the left, and someone doesn’t. All this means is that one will get on the other’s bed all the time and you will hear this statement more in one day than any other.
She won’t stop talking
Well, the good news is that the child that won’t stop talking to you is feeling just as annoyed as you at the moment since her sibling won’t stop talking to her. The bad news is that usually kids just get louder if you’re not fixing something as quickly as they’d like you do.
She won’t let me in
Ah, yes; the way that kids who share a room find their privacy. I’ve found that simply removing the door from its hinges eliminates this fight and makes them think twice about having arguments in the future. Just saying. It’s something that you might want to consider for real.
She won’t help me clean
Listen; it’s never ‘me’ that did anything. It’s always ‘her,’ and no one ever wants to clean it all up. Because even though the other sibling wasn’t even home all day long, it was her fault that the room is a mess and the one who was home all day feels that it’s an injustice that she should have to clean up her own mess that she’s lying to you about making.
She’s using my blanket
This is a problem when the kids have the exact same blanket and one is positive that this one is theirs and not the other siblings. I can assure you that this argument is going to cause you more of a headache than anything else. It’s also the prime example of precisely why buying two of everything is completely useless. They’ll find a way to fight over all of it no matter what. So get used to it and make sure you buy plenty of headache medicine. You’re going to need it.
She’s annoying
The irony here is that they’re both annoying, but you can’t tell them that. On a good note, however, the fighting is sometimes short lived and they tend to get over things very quickly so that you can move on and potentially feel a lot better about life in a moment. Or not, because they’ll move on to fighting about something else and you will never, ever feel good about things the rest of the day until everyone is in bed and quietly sleeping.
She won’t be quiet
The nighttime bedtime issue. Someone talks. Someone snores. Someone moves too much and makes too much noise in the bed. Someone likes to hum to get to sleep. Someone likes to exist, and this is a problem for the other sibling. Since there is literally nothing you can do about the fact that the sheer existence of one child is annoying to the other, you’re going to find a creative way of handling this situation if ever you want to move on from this particular argument.
Photo by Kristian Dowling/Getty Images
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