To think a teenage girl sharing a room with a 6 year old boy isn't fair?

[lightsnotchanging]

AIBU to think this isn't really fair? Or is it?

Is it the case that the non-kitchen room is the self contained room op? Round here it is the kichen/diner that is the self contained room usually. I wouldnt cause all that upheaval to keep one teen dd happy personally.

So there is a second living room downstairs? Then of course that should become a bedroom.

Trying to help...well you imply there are other things going on that you won't tell us so we can't offer advice very well as we are not in full possession of the facts.

Sometimes odd (to you) compromises are reached, because you aren't in full possession of the facts either.

Your trying to help seems to dictate a solution.

All we know is there are 2 downstairs rooms - presumably one is a kitchen

Yanbu.

Privacy is hugely important when you are a teen. I don't mean to be crass at that age girls need to be exploring their bodies a little bit, don't they? Personally I would have ended up being very sexually frustrated and irritable if I had to share a room as a teen.

Where is she supposed to go to speak to her friends, or cry or think?

Ah, then back to the sofa bed suggestion, then. FTR we have a separate kitchen plus combined living and dining room. The living area has a corner sofa that opens out to double bed - we put a folding memory foam mattress on top - that DH and I sleep on.

As for the query re one of the parents working night shifts, then if the shifts are regular and say, the parents needs to sleep during the day, then I would suggest tucking a double mattress protector and double sheet over one of the DC's beds, on top of their (DC) duvet et al, then using that to sleep on with their own single duvet and pillow, while DC is at school. Obviously open window and air room if shift worker is a stinky farty sleeper.

And if they work irregular shifts, then I bloody give up!

Not many 3 beds have 2 living areas, I would one was a living area, the other a dining room. Both of which would be very much need for a family of 6/7.

Mine don't ever seem to want to be on their own even when teens. We all do homework together downstairs. My older children don't take friends up to their bedrooms. They don't like doing that! So they entertain downstairs as do I. Bedrooms are very much for sleeping here.

We ended up getting a house with larger but less rooms. (As we all need to fit in )

It seems with the room your family have got, there are many ways to make it work if the 2 downstairs rooms are living/dining space. Either as bedroom/playroom/guest room/study/ flexible combination of all of the above.

But; the girl has come to you because for wherever reason, she has an issue sharing a room with her brother. Does she have an issue sharing with any of her other siblings? Is there more to it than just a teenage strop about sharing rooms? All of these make a difference to how the space can be used. If it's just a teenage strop then I'm sorry but she will have to lump it.

Who is the one putting pressure on you to let them have a bigger house? This assumes you are a landlord and have a house which would suit. Or they want your home for whatever reason. Again, if the teen, she doesn't get to make a request like that. If it's the parents, well it depends on why they feel they can ask. Is the property in question one which either of you have or would inherit? If that's the case, why have you ended up with/responsible for it and what reasonable reason would deny them the opportunity to live in it instead of you/renting it out?

Ultimately it might just have to be a life lesson for the dd's that sometimes you have to make the best of a bad hand. I guess all you can do is be supportive but encourage them to look at all the options within their own home first.

Mistigri Fri 25-Mar-16 09:37:09

"I am pretty sure my teenager would leave home rather than share with a younger male sibling :-/ She's extremely private - and where does she do homework if other people were using the family rooms?"

Is the homework situation affected by whether the younger sibling is male or female? And what about the other boys who are already having to share and would have to accommodate the 6yo: is their homework less important?

As for exploring your bodies- is there any reason the teen couldn't do this silently when the 6yo is asleep? After all, it can hardly be easy for the older boys either, can it?

And if the girl had to share with an older child of her own sex, she probably wouldn't be happy doing it openly in front of her. So does that mean no one should ever share, ever?

I think there have been some odd replies to this.

I really doubt the six-year-old boy cares that much at this stage but if there is an alternative arrangement to be found, this is desperately unfair on the teenage girl.

The potential solutions as I see it would be....

1. have the three boys in together in one of the larger rooms
2. have the girl and boy in one of the larger rooms with a room divider
3. if there is a dining room, convert that into a fourth bedroom

Tbh, it sounds as if the girl is a bit pushed out and something of an afterthought in the family. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me why she and the boy got the smaller room when the other boys got the big one to begin with.

All this stuff about her needing to 'explore her body'. Would any teen do that sharing a room with a sibling of either sex? If she was sharing with a six year old sister I doubt she would suddenly feel comfortable about cracking one off with her sibling in the room. Red herring.

My DC were fortunate enough to have their own rooms and whilst I'm sure they could have managed if they had had to share I think it would be a pain in the arse for them with regards to revision. All four of them studied in their bedrooms and would have found it distracting and irritating to study in a shared space.

During A'levels all my DC revised until the small hours - I'm not sure how that would have worked out with a younger sibling in the room.
I know it's a bit of a first world issue but I would always prioritise the needs of a teen who is doing exams over younger siblings IF I could.

I know that housing association/benefits wise, the guideline is that once children are over 10 then bedrooms would be expected to be single sexed.

This is so not the case any more hasn't been for years, it's the same as any house, you just have to get on with it

"all my DC revised until the small hours - I'm not sure how that would have worked out with a younger sibling in the room. "

As I've said earlier, a desk lamp will give minimal lighting to the rest of the room. If the yonger child is in a top bunk they shouldn't be disturbed by the older sibling quietly studying.

Do we know that the older boys are not of an age to need to revise? The OP does not appear very interested in them; I can't find any information about them at all.

This threads make me very eye rolly.

I have more DC than bedrooms, like a lot of people I'm sure, and if a relative posted their opinions on the matter on the Internet and invited complete strangers to come and judge as well, I would be extremely annoyed.

Seriously, it's so arrogant and rude, don't you think? I'm sure the vast vast majority of parents are just like all the rest of us here - they love their DC and they want to do the best for them mainly - but people's "best" varies from family to family. I'm sure aspects of everyones' lives (including yours OP) could be judged by other people who would do things differently, why do people feel the need to express their judginess and invite others to join in? If you have genuine concerns about DCs wellbeing report to the appropriate authorities - if concerns aren't serious enough for that than its none of your business quite frankly, and it's certainly none of ours.

I wouldn't dream of it. Enjoy rolling your eyes :) I've actually got just what I needed from this thread, so thank you very much. I know exactly what to do now, and it's also given a few of you a chance to lay into an OP so what's not to like

Where did the older girl sleep before she moved out? I don't get this "three sleeping in a room is unhealthy" tbh . The usual division of rooms in a 3 bedrooms house is a boys room / girls room / parents room.
Which sounds like the way it would have been in this scenario when all 5 kids were still living at home.
Irrelevant; but I can't understand people continuing to have kids that only fit into the house if the older ones move out...

With her sister.

Well then she's not unreasonable at all to be pissed off at little brother moving in.

I know that housing association/benefits wise, the guideline is that once children are over 10 then bedrooms would be expected to be single sexed.

How do they ensure this happens in the NR household then? Because as far as I'm aware NR children are not considered on a housing application. Those children have to make do as a result.
Are the children that a resident expected to give up their room and space and be squished all together in one room so that the NR child can have a room of their own due to them being older?

So to say that the government/council have "expectations" about the ages and genders of children sharing, well they should take in to consideration that children sometimes have 2 households and their application processes for housing and their bedroom allocation rules should reflect that.

Not that any of this affects me - but it did for a while and I still feel strongly about it.

The rules for housing associations are rules for them to decide what size of home to give you. There are no rules about how you choose to use your rooms, and many people end up in smaller houses than ideal anyway. (A housing association would also say you shouldn't need to put 3 kids in one room, so this household would be entitled to 4 bedrooms, theoretically)

YABU. It's not ideal maybe, but there you go. We're currently in the process of finally moving out of temporary accommodation into social housing. The temporary accommodation is a bunch of small 1 bed flats. Families wedge themselves in however - mattresses in the lounge, sofa beds, mums sharing with teenage daughters. Some families spend a year or more like this. Not everyone can have their own room all the time.