Sharing room and personal space

Those of you whose kids share a bedroom, how do you deal with them needing their own space?

Tallon gathers up his toys and puts them in the bedroom and shuts the door so Kayla can't go in there. And he likes to shut himself in there occasionally and play. I try to tell him that it's Kayla's room too, but he doesn't really get it.

Do you kind of divide up the room and have separate boxes/shelves for their toys? Most of our toys are all out in the family room, very few are in the bedroom. Our 2 are in bunk beds so I can't really draw a line down the room or anything LOL.

I dunno... I just want to squash his possessiveness of his room before it gets out of hand. It could be the ages they are contributing to it too, they're not really playing together properly yet.. Tallon spends most of his time trying to get rid of her and protecting his stuff LOL.

Any suggestions?

My older two (5yrs and 3 yrs) share a room....but both girls. Since DD#1 has started school this year, we have noticed she likes to do her own thing more- read on her bed (or try too....;)), colour in on her own etc. I defn think they need they're own space....which is why we have a draftsman coming to our home tomorrow to draw up plans for yet another extensoin......

They have toys in their room....a) to get outta my hair b) they have soo many toys there is simply no more room in the play room....

In your situation...i dont know....its a 2bedder your living in right ??? I was going to suggest a wall divide thingy (you can get from ikea), but bunks dont really work that way....for us, i think its going to get worse, before it gets better.....thus the reason i think they all need their own room. I know i didnt have my own room till i was 13 (i am 1 of 4 girls). I dont know about different sexes though....what do you plan to do when he is say 7 and your little girls is 4-5 years....??? Maybe they are just warning you for what is in store......sorry, not much help.....

Good luck though....

hehe.. yeah maybe. lol.

We're in 3 bedrooms, but one is the office. I know lots of kids share, so i figure there must be a way to make it work. I know boys/girls share too in the early years so we'll persevere :) At least with boy & girl it can make it easy to separate their stuff hehe.

I have vivid memories of sharing a room with my sister for many years and this is what I would do:

Get a two colour theme. Pink&Blue, Blue&Purple, whatever. Assign a colour to each child. Divide the floor space in the room up by using two rugs/large mats in each colour. Right next to each mat put the toy bin/shelf/drawers that belong to that child (either paint them or you could get some coloured contact and just cut out big shapes, hearts, flowers, etc) so that each kid has their own spot for their own special things. Put all the shared toys in a separate location (in different tubs, in the cupboard, whatever) and call them the "sharing toys". Tell Tallon that the sharing toys are for sharing, if he doesn't share you will put them away and no one will play with them. Trust me it'll work.

Friends of ours with an older boy and twin boys who are 18 months younger put the older one in a play pen so he can set up his "special toys" (like train sets and lego) in a space where the smaller ones can't get at them. other than that I haven't much advice - luckily Flynn hasn't got upset with Ollie like that ....yet!