When your kid has a mind (and a room) of her own

"Purple," said my 12-year-old, when I asked what color she wanted to redo her room.

"Like a pale lavender, or a midnight plum?" I asked, hopefully.

"No, bright purple." She showed me a wallpaper she'd found in a catalog. The color was called peony — so bright, I had to feel my eyebrows to be sure they were still on.

I wanted to veto her plan, but then I thought of that video that made the rounds recently, the one of Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon professor of computer science who's dying of cancer, giving his last lecture. It would be overwhelmingly sad if it weren't so darned full of good, life-affirming advice. "If your kids want to paint their rooms," he said, "as a favor to me, let them do it. Don't worry about resale value." Pausch decorated his boyhood room with quadratic equations.

But my daughter doesn't want to paint the periodic table of elements on her wall. She wants hot purple print wallpaper. Worse, she wants a purple bedspread and matching stool — in crushed velvet.

The more I say, "Ugh," the more she likes it. The only thing we agree on is that her room needs a redo.

It all sounds so familiar. I flash back to my adolescent bedroom, my tolerant parents. I ushered out the blue butterfly bedspread and drapes my mother had custom made, and replaced them with Indian tapestries I bought myself from a local import store. I covered the walls and ceilings with tapestries, too, hung Indian bells on my door and burned coned incense so long in the bathroom I permanently scorched the Formica. And my parents let me stay.

I discussed the issue with Angela Lamson, a licensed marriage and family therapist, in Greenville, NC. "This isn't about the room, of course," she said, sounding very therapist-like. "When kids feel the urge to change up their room, there's a big reorganization process going on inside them."

"Does that mean parents have to undergo some remodeling, too?"

"I'm afraid so."

Room redo rules

Here's what else Lamson says parents should keep in mind when kids say, "I want my space my way."

• Set rules. While kids should have a big say in how their rooms look, they also need — and want — guidelines. One rule: No destruction. (They can't spray-paint graffiti on the bathroom tile). The room needs to be safe, and that means clean.

• Get over yourself and the fact that your child's room may spoil the visual flow of your house. It's more important that the room be a place your child can bring friends and say, "This is me in 3-D." Not, "This is what my mom thinks I should be."

• Offer perspective. An adolescent can't foresee his taste changing in a couple of years, while you know (or at least hope) it will. Thus, don't pay a lot for their more, uh, eccentric decorating choices. For instance, I agreed to the wallpaper — for one wall, not four. And she agreed to a well-made white woven duvet cover (classic) instead of the purple velvet one. But she can adorn it with her (cheap to change) purple crushed velvet pillows.

• Get a second opinion. If your child won't agree with your decorating judgment, ask a design expert at a home improvement or design store to render an opinion.

• Focus on the upside. No matter how hideous the look, redecorating a bedroom is a great way for a child to experience the reward of having a vision and realizing it. I can't think of a better backdrop for life.

Marni Jameson is a nationally syndicated columnist who lives in the Denver area. You may contact her through www.marnijameson.com.