Can You Affect Your Child’s Mood With Their Room Color?

It’s always a nice idea to repaint your child’s room every once in a while. It refreshes the area, makes it look cleaner and can be exciting for your child. What color should you paint the room? Is there a best room color for kids? It’s usually a good idea to get your child’s input on what color they want their room to be. After all, they’re the ones that are going to have to live in it. Typically, the older your child is, the more input you can safely incorporate from them.

In the end, though, it’s your home, and you will be deciding on the color. One thing you may want to consider is how wall color affects a child’s mood.

Can Paint Color Impact a Child’s Mood?

Studies have shown that colors can stimulate different parts of the brain and have an effect on mood, and that is no different for children. It’s well known that warm colors like red, orange and yellow tend to be more stimulating, while cool colors like blue and green can feel more peaceful. While you don’t necessarily want to be completely ruled by potential mood effects when deciding on the best room color for your kids, here are some feelings that have been associated with different colors that may be helpful to know.

Red: Red is a color that you will typically want to use sparingly in your child’s room. There is a reason that bullfighters use red capes to stimulate a charging bull — even though the bull cannot actually see the color red. Red is an extremely stimulating color, associated with passion and anger, and can increase heart rate, blood pressure and appetite. While a little stimulation for your child can be healthy, you’re not going to want your child seeing red everywhere when you’re trying to get them to go to sleep for the night.

Pink: Pink is the pacifist shade of red. Even though it is in the red family, its much lighter tones tend to be extremely calming. Some prisons even use pink quite liberally on walls and uniforms to diffuse hostility among inmates. There are a couple of downsides to pink, though. It can wear on the eyes, and children may get tired of pink everywhere after a while. Also, pink is often still perceived as a feminine color that could mean your son may object to an excess of pink. Like red, pink is usually better for accents or trim than as the main color for the room.

Yellow: Yellow is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to a child’s room. The color yellow has been shown to be a concentration and memory booster, so if your child has trouble focusing, you may want to consider it when painting their room. Yellow is also an upbeat, happy color, although it can be a bit stimulating. If your child has trouble settling down, especially at night, you may want to temper your use of yellow.

Orange: The last of the warm colors, orange falls somewhere in between. It is slightly less stimulating than red and a bit more stimulating than yellow, while still being a cheerful, confident color. Use it sparingly, but you can go a little heavier with orange than with red.

Purple: While purple is a cooler color, and one that can inspire creativity and passion, it can also be a little bit stimulating, so you may not want to go overboard with purple.

Blue and Green: The classic cool colors are great for a child’s room, or for an adult’s bedroom for that matter. These colors stimulate feelings of peacefulness and tranquility. They can be quite soothing and make us think of nature. These are great colors for children who are anxious or overstimulated.

Remember that you don’t have to, and often don’t want to, paint a room only one color. Consider the different attributes of these colors as well as your child’s desires in order to come up with a great kids’ room paint scheme.

For more painting tips, or an estimate on a fantastic interior paint job in Fairfield, Connecticut, Westchester County, New York, or the Hamptons, call Shoreline Painting & Drywall Inc. at 203-302-1086.