<p>Forgive me for not having read through the entire thread, but here is the advice that MIT gives to parents of incoming freshmen: For the first year, keep intact your son or daughter’s place at home. They will need to know that it’s there. Sometimes the first year can be stressful, and to immediately give away the room to a sibling, or to turn it into a media room (what my husband wanted to do at the time) can just add to the stress. </p>
<p>After the freshman year is over, re-visit the conversation if you like, with your daughter as a full participant in the conversation.</p>
<p>I thought that advice was great. It did prevent us from immediately usurping our daughter’s room and converting it to a different sort of space. There were some times when she really needed just to come home, and it helped that some things were the same.</p>
<p>^^^ When Mr. Brady promised Greg the attic space, and Mrs. Brady promised Marcia the attic space?? Things always worked out so well for that darn Brady Bunch :D</p>
<p>I’d say, “When she stops coming home for the summer.” That’s a principled distinction–after she stops coming home for the summer, her use of the space will drop too much to justify keeping it for her.</p>
<p>Our younger s sorta “moved” himself into our basement when he was in HS, so his old room sits empty when he comes home. He goes right to the basement and settles in. When older s graduated from college and moved away, he took his bed from his bedroom. We replaced it with a sofabed. My H sort uses that room as a second office too. So when older s comes home to visit, he now gets the guest room instead of his old room, which I imagine feels kinda funny to him, but he hasn’t said anything. Seems like we should have converted younger son’s room to the second office, and probably would have if older s hadnt taken his bed. Anyway, my point in all this rambling-- leave yoru daus room alone and set some limits on your son. He has his room and the basement. Thats enough.</p>
<p>S#1 & S#3 made the switch, but not until soph year. By then, everyone was comfortable with the new evolving family dynamic and older S did not feel displaced. In our case there were perks to both rooms so the kids felt it was a win, win. Room#1 was larger, but had a shared Jack and Jill bath; room#2 was smaller, but had its own bath. I’m glad S#2 was happy where he was!</p>
<p>I had the opposite problem when I was young. My brother joined the Navy and my parents insisted I move into his bedroom and I liked my old room better even though it was smaller. My old bedroom was turned into a sewing room.</p>
<p>My younger son has asked if he could move into older son’s room next year, and we said no. It turns out he just wanted the closet space! He is a clotheshorse. We may let him “borrow” some of the closet space after older son leaves for college. Maybe… no more clothes piles on the floor? I know, dream on…</p>
<p>We didn’t change D1’s room other than to add Queen size bed and new more mature wallpaper and dressers (all her stuff is still in there tho). This way we could use it as a guest room when she was off at school but she got her room back on all school breaks. Well, she is graduating this coming weekend and…moving home while she works a low paying but useful job and applies to graduate school. I suspect a lot of her peers, in this economy, are doing the same.</p>
<p>As soon as D1 was out, D2 moved into her room. D2 was in a tiny bedroom on the first floor, D1 had the upstairs, much bigger bedroom. No way was that going to sit empty. D1 is not a sentimental type and was eagerly looking forward to moving out on her own. She came home the first summer (stayed in the smaller room), but not after that. I came from a large family (6 kids) and whenever one went to college, the rooms were shifted.</p>
<p>I must be a horrid parent. We have a 3 bedroom house and raised 4 kids in it. They shared bedrooms and one is bigger than the other. The two younger girls needed a bunk bed since two twins would not fit.
When my oldest went to college, we moved her stuff to the basement - moved the two younger into the big bedroom and our rising hs freshman into her own room.
My oldest got over it.</p>
<p>When the second went to college - her two younger were in high school and they got their own rooms. The second never came home anyway and she got over it.
At 23 and 27 have not seen any long lasting emotional effects from either child.</p>
<p>^I think it’s a different situation when there is a space crunch and other siblings are forced to share the room, as other posters pointed out. </p>
<p>In your case, it would be unfair for the one going off to college to have his room remain this temple of holiness while others are bunking and otherwise loosing privacy and a lot of comfort.</p>
<p>In the OP’s case, it seems unfair for the S - who already has a nice room and huge basement space - to be a hog and upset his sister so that he can have the basement AND the biggest room.</p>
<p>I’m getting kicked out of my “bigger and better” room the day I leave for college. I think it’s a rite of passage for younger kids. Plus, my room won’t be mine anymore. I’m moving out and going to live at my new home. Might as well let a sibling use it</p>
<p>seriously, I doubt your D needs the room to be “hers” anymore, and it seems awful silly for it to bother her. Let S1 have it</p>
<p>I’m with those who say, let D keep her room – until she decides herself to let go of it. Which she will, eventually. (In my D’s case it took a year and a half… at which point her younger brother decided he didn’t really want her room afterall. Peace reigned.)</p>
<p>I was the oldest and when I left my mom re-did my room for my brother. Made sense to me; I wasn’t home again except for that first summer. There wasn’t any agonizing over the issue on my part at all!</p>
<p>Just using this as a jumping off point - when you all say “bigger and better,” how much bigger and how much better? My D’s room (which was previously a shared nursery) is a bit bigger than S’s room, maybe 2-3 feet longer, and has 2 windows versus his which has one. But their closet space is identical and they’re not rooms that are so appreciably different than someone would say, “Oh, that’s the bad room.” Are we talking older houses here with widely different size rooms?</p>
<p>^^yup. My room has three full windows as opposed to my sister’s one. My room is about 12x15 whereas her’s is 9x10. I also have a full walk in closet, and she only has a normal closet…
I guess the biggest thing about my room is that it’s more set off from the rest of the house-it’s more private and quieter. Her’s is right off the living room</p>
Never had my own bedroom. Woohoo!</p>