Children's rooms are very special things and there's no getting around the fact that their color and design deeply influences a child. Where we have to be careful in their creation is to not let adult preferences and the marketing environment overwhelm good sense. It's important to develop a true sensitivity as to what a young child needs to feel safe and secure.

How do you know if a child's room is successful? The best indicator is how are they sleeping? If the parents keep finding the child in bed with them, that child's room is not working. Children spend much of their time in the highly creative Theta State where shapes are the primary language.

Feng Shui often counsels about the danger of attacking angles and the comfort of curves, here's why. A child's body reads straight lines, stripes and objects like venetian blinds as fangs and claws. A curve or circle is read as the shape of the Mother's breast. Where would you rather sleep? We recall a child's bedroom in which the walls, bed covers and pillows were thin white stripes on a blue background. The windows had blue mini blinds. The Mother/designer loved it. The child would not sleep in the room.

When decorating the walls avoid high contrasts, stripes and angles, and lean towards soft curves and brushed finishes. If you are including a decorative border make sure the pattern is organically shaped. Why do children love ducklings and bunnies, all curves and fuzz? Those shapes are completely unthreatening. Another indicator of whether the room is working is when they can play there quietly, and settle down to sleep easily. Noisy play is for the playground. The bedroom is their creative haven.

As Bill Cosby says when children are arguing "Father's are not concerned with fair, Father's simply want quiet." He has a point there! An important component for creating this harmony and setting energy levels is the color of the room. Color is a very emotionally charged subject. Let's start by saying that gender specific colors are not necessarily the way to go in today's world. If a little girl's ambition is to be Xena the Warrior Princess, pink and lavender may not be the best choice for her room.

However if your little one is a Miss Priss you can feel free to indulge her love of lace. That little boy who is all spit and vinegar on the ball field is still his Mother's tender little child when he lays down in bed. Don't confuse the colors of the playroom and the bedroom. A couple of words of caution! Have variety in the colors. The human aura responds to the vibrations around it. A monochromatic room inhibits emotional flexibility and creative growth.

Here's a classic case. A client's daughter grew up in a completely lavender room. Every bit of cloth, every object, every pillow was lavender, a color known for promoting chastity. By choice she went to all girl schools right through college, eventually became a nurse, all with barely a date. Even though she had moved out of the house the pattern was still active. A child's relationship to their room is very profound. Upon our advice her father ripped the lavender wallpaper down.

Two weeks later their daughter met a nice young man that quickly turned into a true relationship. While blues and lavenders are not preferred for an adult's room, their cooling and calming energy is fine for a child. Skin tones are appropriate for bedrooms for any age. Light pinks are very calming. Avoid bright walls in a child's bedroom. Today's over-lit neighborhoods create a nighttime environment that is not truly dark. A bright white or yellow room may reflect too much light. Yellow is good for a study room since it promotes mental clarity, but in a bedroom it may cause respiratory problems.

Remember that red and other bright colors are energizing so avoid using them in a bedroom. You don't want tempers to flare during playtime or energy levels to rise at sleep time. Green is a stable and balancing color that makes it a perfect choice for all ages. Avoid cold colors since no one wants to be cold in their bedroom.

Soft plant patterns are always suitable since they calm the body and make us feel nurtured. Consider how the color will look during both the day and night. Children aren't popped out of cookie molds; each has their individual needs. For instance some children are extremely light sensitive and require light inhibiting colors and window coverings to sleep well.

If they're born with strong Gemini, Libra or Aquarius in their western astrological charts, or born in the hours of the Tiger (3 AM-5AM), Horse (11AM-1PM) or Dog (7PM-9PM) they may be sensitive to light or other distractions.

The bed of course is very important. A child's aura is squiggly. If you want them to feel secure and sleep well make sure the bed has a headboard to ground that crown chakra. Wood is best. This is true for babies as well, and will often stop them from moving all over the crib at night. While a young child's bed can have one side along a wall, although its not ideal, at age twelve and up they need to have both sides of the bed open and accessible so their aura can expand.

If when they are lying in bed on their back, their left side is against the wall, it inhibits their sense of self-worth. If the right side is against the wall it restricts their ability to reach out to others. Neither is preferable in a sociable youngster. The same is true for bunk beds. They can provide a cozy nest for a little one, but once they come into their own animal year (a child born in the year of the Rabbit is twelve years old in the next Rabbit year) they need a bigger nest.

One caution about bunk beds! Attach a piece of cloth to the underside of the upper bunk to conceal the angular cross slats from the child in the lower bunk. Bedrooms that are too large and multi-purpose don't make good nests. If a child is lying in bed and they find themselves staring at their desk, and their home work waiting to be done, how restful can they feel?

What if they're looking at a TV? They're trying to sleep and the TV is whispering to them "Pssst! Hey, I've got eighty-seven channels. I bet there's something on right now you'd like to see." Or what does that line of dolls and stuffed animals on the shelf look like at night? All of their fluffiness turns into a line of shadows and dark, beady eyes! When you set up their room lay down on their bed and turn off the lights. Imagine you're a little child alone in the dark. It's okay, you can grab the Teddy Bear. It let's you feel what they feel.

If the room is too large partition it with screens and make sure the views from the bed are rounded and soft. Use screens or furniture to visually separate play and study areas from the bed. Don't place shelves or furniture any place where they over hang the bed, or point at the sleeping child. Make sure their bed can command the door or the passage way past the screen.

Generally the far right hand corner is a good place for a child's bed since it is away from the energy flow coming in the door, and in a part of the personal Bagua that relates to nurturing. Children should learn at a young age to leave their outside shoes at the front door. Shoes pick up sha, that nasty disruptive discharge from pollution and chaos. Shoes can drag that sha into the bedroom, and the next thing you know there's monsters under the bed or in the closet.

A healthy house has a shoe closet by the main door with a potpourri scented with essential oils to scrub that miasma away. Here are a few final thoughts. Keep children's beds away from any electrical sockets, even if that means pushing the bed a little bit away from the wall. Insure that there are no television or computer monitor backs facing the child's head through adjacent walls (There should be no electronics anyplace near a child's bed). Most people are healthier when their sleeping heads point north, northeast or northwest.

And a Scandinavian study recently showed that the single most effective sleep aid was to make sure that the feet are warm. So make your kids wear socks to bed or pajamas with feet in them. Are socks an esoteric solution? Maybe! In Astrology the feet relate to Pisces the fishes, ruler of the worlds of imagination and dreams, so maybe fuzzy socks are a way of assuring that our children have warm and cozy dreams.