There’s “room” for debate.
“Living room kids” and “bedroom kids” have gained popularity on social media as parenting influencers discuss the terms and what they reveal about a family’s dynamic.
A living room child is a child who spends most of their time at home in shared spaces such as the living room, kitchen or dining room.
Meanwhile, a bedroom child spends most of their time in the privacy afforded by their own space.
On the “How Married Are You?!” podcast, married co-hosts Yvette and Glen Henry discussded how their children were all in the kitchen as Yvette was preparing dinner.
“I’m like, ya’ll, we have almost 4,000 square feet here and you’re all right here. Right here,” Yvette laughed — but then she realized she was looking at the circumstance all wrong, remembering a discussion she had previously seen in a Reel about “living room families.”
“I don’t think that I always appreciate what I have in this situation,” she realized. “Like the gift of all this togetherness that we are going to look back on one day and say, ‘oh my gosh, I miss that.’”
Whether your child is a living room or bedroom child goes deeper than where they spend their time — it’s about why they spend their time in these spaces.
As the Henrys explained in the caption of the Instagram video, which has garnered 1.2 million views, “living room kids feel safe” — they’re “loud, goofy, all up under you because they belong here” and aren’t trying to escape from anything. The space they’re in “feels like home.”
On the other hand, they wrote that bedroom kids retreat, isolate and go quiet “because the shared space doesn’t feel like it’s for them.”
“Listen, we’re not saying every child’s personality is the same,” they clarified. “But sometimes the mess, the constant chatter, the chaos in your living room? That’s the sound of safety. Of comfort. Of connection.”
Whitney Raglin Bignall, associate clinical director of the Kid’s Mental Health Foundation, a nonprofit promoting children’s mental health, agreed with the sentiment that parents should feel overjoyed that their children feel comfortable enough to be in these shared spaces.
She also asserted that children may spend more time in their bedrooms to avoid any stressors caused by family conflict.
“Safety could play a role,” she told USA Today, adding that other factors could play into the situation as well, such as the child’s age, personality, culture or time of year.
For example, some people are naturally more introverted than others, and some prefer more solitary activities such as reading.
Children might choose to spend more time unwinding in their bedrooms during the school year, too, Dr. Thomas Priolo, a child psychiatrist at Hackensack Meridian Health, explained to the outlet, since they are more socially stimulated by school and extracurricular activities when outside of the home.
And as children enter their pre-teen and teenage years, they tend to retreat to their bedrooms because they “will want to be more independent and feel responsible for themselves, and having a space for themselves in their room allows them to take control,” Priolo said. “As children get older, it becomes more important and more of a conscious decision.”
Some families may have designated playrooms for children to spend time in while parents unwind in so-called “adult spaces.”
“It’s also about how families accept and welcome children’s play, their toys and personal items in communal living spaces rather than requesting that these are kept in their bedrooms or separate spaces,” Dr. Martha Deiros Collado, a clinical psychologist, told Newsweek.
She added that allowing toys and games in communal spaces “sends out a loud message that children are not mini adults. It communicates: children live here too and we let them take up as much space as adults do.”
However, Priolo noted that it’s not a bad thing to have a kid who wants to spend more time in their bedroom — but red flags should be raised if a kid who normally spends time in shared spaces starts to retreat into their bedroom.
“Rather than viewing it as ‘living room’ versus ‘bedroom kids,’ the best way to view it is as a house and making sure that kids feel safe no matter where they are,” he said.
Raglin Bignall added that it’s OK to shift from a “living room parent” to a “bedroom parent” every once in a while to recharge, especially since it can become overwhelming.
“Everyone needs breaks. You can’t have people around you all the time,” Raglin Bignall said. “It’s great to have communal and family time and build family belonging but it’s also important to think about when are you making sure you have time to fill your cup.”
