I’d like to take a moment to consider how we can empower the next generation. How we can build their skills and confidence so that they not only create a fulfilled and happy life for themselves, but also feel capable to create a future world that is beneficial to others.

I’m thinking about this at the moment because this week marks a milestone in my life with my last parents’ evening. It’s made me think about how my life will soon be changing after 20 years of nursery and school years. Years of diary appointments and commitments to make sure that my children are growing and developing into socially responsible, independent and caring adults.

As I’m coming out the other side, I know that I’ve done a good job because other people compliment me on what great kids they are. Sure my children aren’t angels but that’s because I want them to have character and confidence in their abilities. I’m blessed with healthy, confident, sociable and talented children because over the years I’ve created a nurturing and stimulating environment for them.

Today I’d like to share with you my favourite ways for creating a motivating and invigorating environment. Whether you have children or not, you can use these designer tips to create a positive environment that will stimulate your senses and create your happy space. This in turn will give you the confidence to go out and face the world with your own individuality and personal style.

Surrounding interior design, there’s a plethora of studies and research that show how your environment directly affects both mental and physical development, and how it can make you happy or sad.

“Your environment can impact your mood. Your senses are constantly scanning the environment to send messages to your brain. The information is then translated in your brain to your cellular system to provide either positive or negative emotions.” Dr. Lamees Khorshid (Clinical Psychologist)

Your environment will nurture and support you or it will irritate and annoy you. Your environment will help you feel invigorated and energetic or it will make you slump in dismay. Your environment can also make you feel happy or miserable.

This is particularly important for children of any age when our aim as a parent is to encourage them to grow into loving, caring and independent individuals. If we create a positive environment for them as children then we can hope to reap healthy happy adults.

Through my work, I’ve seen the fallout of what happens when a child grows up in an environment that’s less than nurturing. The child is either complacent or finds it difficult to cope and hard to concentrate. They don’t reach their full potential and life is difficult.  There’s constant stress and worry so they can’t relax and unwind. This makes them feel awkward and reclusive so they don’t want to share their space with others. Not only do they have an unhappy childhood but they can also take this negativity into adult life.

If we create a positive environment then it helps to promote healthy, confident, sociable and talented children – empowering the next generation. A positive environment is crucial to your mental and physical health both as a child growing up and as an adult coping with the daily stresses of a busy life.

HEALTHY SPACE

A healthy space is organised, but it’s especially organised for the way that your children tidy up.

If you’re shaking your head in dismay because your children don’t tidy up then there are several reasons why this happens.

1. You do it for them so why should they bother. There are very few people who enjoy tidying up so you need to make it into an enjoyable event to encourage good habits. When my children were young we would tidy up together. Yes, it was time consuming initially because they wanted to get more toys out to play with but after a while it became less difficult and far quicker.
2. They don’t respect their environment. The décor is dated or the space is often designed for adults instead of children so they don’t feel connected to the environment. To them it feels drab and boring so they’re not interested in keeping it tidy and looking good. If you want them to tidy up then you need to stimulate their interest with engaging interior design.
3. The storage is not suitable. They’ve grown up and the environment, but particularly the storage, is no longer age appropriate and doesn’t suit their needs.

A child’s space should be organised should fit their personality, their age and the type of things that they like to collect.

For example, as a young child my son liked to play with Lego so I organised his bedroom with coloured boxes for the different types of parts. This made it easy for him to find things and also simple for him to tidy up because he could just sweep the parts back into the relevant box. My daughter, however, loved to read so her bedroom was organised with shelves so that it looked like her personal library. She could see the individual books and easily find the one she wanted to read, but it also taught her how to categorize her things. Did she want them ordered by colour, by author or by genre?

Giving your children the correct type of storage solution for their things will help their development because it will encourage their independence. They can reach their things, move their things, touch their things and control their things. When they run out of space in the box or on the shelf then they have to decide what will go to make way for the new things.

The process of organising and evaluating their things creates a healthy environment, which promotes a healthy mind that allows your child to focus and concentrate effectively. As they become an adult these life skills of organisation, concentration and focus will help them to more easily assess and appraise a situation.

By nurturing your child’s environment and teaching them healthy habits, you’re creating healthy, confident, sociable and talented adults – empowering the next generation.

If you have any questions then either get in touch or sign up to my interior design masterclass – #secretdesignparty where I’ll answer them in person.

At the #secretdesignparty, I’ll share with you how to use these and other skills to help you create an environment that your kids will love so much they’ll want to keep it tidy every day.

#EmpoweringTheNextGeneration 

Gwendoline Alderton

BIID Interior Designer

GA Interiors

(m): 07841 519802