When does it become inappropriate for a boy/girl to share a bedroom? *trigger warning MNHQ*

[pamperer]

So... I know the LEGAL age is 10 (I think) but I'm looking for more personal opinions on when you'd think it was inappropriate.

For background, my children are 3.5 (my boy) and 9 months (girl), and are going to share a bedroom, and I'm wondering how long that would be feasible.

You clearly haven't read my posts properly, so I'll break down my response and then try to stop banging my head against a wall.

I'm not claiming 'expertise' by sharing my lived experience - I'm discussing my and other's experiences, which were v similar.

If you're going by safeguarding training and experience then yes, I brought up mine and theirs in response to you declaring yours.

I suggested 9 because it's an age boys can start puberty. I was 9 at the time the abuse started (as was my mum with hers, and my schoolfriends with theirs) - my brother (and their brothers) were older than that.

As I pointed out, we didn't have a shared room at that point and hadn't had for years.

I haven't said sharing rooms is a vector for enabling abuse opportunities - I have said that abuse happens within the home and family more commonly than is realised or comfortable, regardless of room sharing status, and it's easy for parents to not be aware of it going on - whether that unawareness is unintentional or deliberate.

And to a pp, yes it's a fucked up way to think. Thank God I dont have kids, ey?

I would be led by them. My oldest two are a boy and girl but very close in age and they chose to share until they were 12/13. If they’re happy then that’s what matters.

Looooong time ago, but I was in a cot in my brothers bedroom, and he was about 16!! Apparently if I cried he took me into his bed. Nothing weird or untoward, I think it was more normal in the "old" days, even in fairly wealthy middle class homes. My other two older brothers shared a room too. Three double bedrooms, and two bathrooms, with three older teens, and one little girl. I basically had four dads, it was great .

Mine shared until eldest's 12th birthday when he asked to have his own room. Daughter was 10.

But when I was a child I shared a room with both a brother and sister until eldest (sister) was 14! It was a big nursery-style room and we loved it. Big sister was the sort of Wendy figure. But when she turned 14 she wanted her own space.

Sexual abuse in siblings does happen, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong or ‘fucked up’ in acknowledging this.

However, I think that my reservations about siblings sharing a room are not based so much around the possibility of what might happen but more about what I would personally want to effectively communicate to my children.

Privacy should never really be something a child has to ask for. I’ve seen this a hundred times on MN over the years - when should I stop sharing a bath with my child, being naked in front of them, sharing a bed - every time the cheerful answer is ‘when they ask for it.’ That’s the wrong way around IMO.

Privacy should simply be a given. A child won’t ask for something if they have little concept of what it is in the first place.

A child won’t ask for something if they have little concept of what it is in the first place

Exactly. And I come at it from the opposite side of your argument. A child doesn't acknowledge privacy as a concept until you point it out to them that it is an issue. When for others, privacy is not important. It's a societal concept, not an innate concept.

How can you say privacy isn’t important?

Do you routinely barge in on people on the toilet? Do you go for medical examinations with the door open? Do you leave the door open when you use the shower at the gym?

Even if those things aren’t important to you personally, acknowledging that they are to most people is how society is set up. We give people privacy as a given in these situations. By denying that to children, you are immediately blurring boundaries.

Do you routinely barge in on people on the toilet? Yes, no locks here.
Do you go for medical examinations with the door open? No.
Do you leave the door open when you use the shower at the gym? No doors on our showers in the gym.

Really? You are out shopping and you casually open the door when someone is using the toilet? I’m sorry, I don’t believe you.

Around nine or ten. I shared with a sibling of the opposite sex and it made me uncomfortable at that age.

My 2 have always had their own rooms but sometimes on holiday they do share. They are 15 and 11. DS isn’t bothered and DD would prefer her own room on holiday but knows it’s not always possible. If DD ever said she really didn’t want to share on holidays we wouldn’t make her. Last year we spent 1 night in a hotel on the way somewhere else and despite my request there were 2 double beds in the room. It was midnight and not possible to change anything so she shared a bed with me and DH/DS shared.

I expect there's a lot more sibling abuse than people realise.

When I was 6/7 my brother showed me porn magazines, masturbated in front of me, pestered me once to show him my private parts and occasionally snuck his hand between my sheets when he thought I was asleep. (I don't remember him managing to touch me though apart from my hands/legs. And I don't know if he ever managed anything further when I was asleep...) He had hit puberty and was curious. Wanted to experiment and also wield some power. Was it abuse?

It stopped when I changed bedrooms to share with a younger brother. And I finally got my own room when I begged my mum at age 14.

I've never spoken about it with my brother. I don't think he's a bad person or that he'd do anything like this to anyone else. We get on well as adults. However, it's something that still bothers me sometimes and that I should probably deal with at some point.

For background, I'm from a 'naice' middle-class family. DM v religious and naive (no siblings herself). She'd have been horrified by what went on.

Reading this thread and some of the replies made me feel I need to share my experience so no one else is a naive parent. Puberty/hormones can change boys' behaviour and you need to be aware of it.

pigeonsfeather Don't be facetious. We are talking about behaviour within the home, with your own family.

And what you teach them there is hugely important, and there is nothing facetious about that.

Privacy should never have to be requested, it should be granted as a matter of course.

Honestly, I think around 9/10 would be the maximum that I would be comfortable with unless there truly was no other option.

Legally there is no age limit. My best friend at school shared with her brother until she was 16 and he was 14 and they finally moved to a 2 bedroom flat. It was a one bedroom flat before and their mum slept in the living room. (Personally I would have shared with the daughter and the son could have slept in the living room, but that was her decision).