Create a Calm Home for Kids
Calm spaces in homes bring immense benefits to children and families everywhere. With daily worries and the well-known negative effects caused by stress, it’s easy to see why most people strive to create a peaceful home environment. Simplicity, comfort, and contentment become wonderful antidotes to the challenges in the world that affect all ages. A peaceful life comes with a wide range of benefits, such as:
- Decreased stress, anxiety, and depression
- Lower blood pressure
- Reduced pain
- Improved sleep patterns
- Increased creativity
- Improved mood
- Boosted self-confidence
- Better emotional regulation
One way to cultivate peace is to design a calming home environment. A calm home can be a great way to reduce stressors and give your family—and yourself—a refuge in a safe and familiar place.
How To Create a Calm Home
Whether to help your children feel safe or upgrade your personal space, a calming design can be achieved by anyone by choosing elements that best promote peace.
Use color.
The psychology of color has long been studied in relation to mental health, design, marketing, visual communication, and various other fields. Studies consistently show that neutral and light natural colors are the best for promoting calm. For instance, calming colors for the living room could include beige, gray, white, light green, or light blue. Shades of blue are particularly known to decrease stress.
Consider calming decor.
Calming room decor involves color, but individual personalities and tastes also influence it. People who engage in comfort decorating design their spaces with that in mind. Incorporating elements of design that stir feelings of nostalgia or positivity helps you and your children envision future goals and can be powerfully beneficial. Think about what your family loves, appreciates, values, and hopes for, and use those things to inform your decorating.
Introduce calm-down spaces for kids—or adults.
“Calm-down spaces” are designated areas set aside for breaks when emotions run high. Also called a calm-down corner, this space promotes feelings of safety and attitudes of reflection with comforting and soothing items. Soft rugs or blankets, bean bags, stuffed animals, and short bookcases or curtains for privacy are common elements of these spaces. Isolated safe spaces like these can also be soothing places of escape for adults.
Embrace nature.
Nature has amazing benefits for our mental health, so bring some greens and blues inside! Plants, water fountains, fish tanks, or even pictures of nature can all add calming elements to your home. During winter months when daylight hours decrease, sun lamps replicate the rising and setting of the sun and can sometimes help natural sleep cycles.
Soothe the senses.
Explore comfort from all angles. Use different elements within a space to work together to address all the senses for maximum calm. Candles or room sprays provide relaxing scents, while natural or warm light is easy on the eyes. Music, sound machines, or ambient noise promote calm through sound. For tactile comfort, blankets deliver both weight and softness.
While a calm environment may benefit anyone in any living space, it can be crucial for children in emotionally intense situations such as foster care. Creating an atmosphere of trust, comfort, and safety makes a huge difference for a child who needs stability.
