Before Jude moved to his fantastic school, I spent ages planning what his bedroom would look like. I guess it was partly out of guilt, worry, fear that he wouldn’t immediately settle in but I wanted it to be as cosy and Jude-like as possible.
A few weeks in to Jude arriving there, I was so sad to be told that nearly everything was being taken out of his room for his own safety and I was even more shocked when I went up to collect him for the weekend and saw just how bare his bedroom had become. Because of the amount of melt downs he was having, it just wasn’t fair on the rest of the house to be put in such a dangerous position. For when in a bad mood, Jude will use whatever comes to hand as a missile. Unfortunately, he was grabbing the photos off the table and wall and lobbing them down the stairs and in the direction of anyone wandering nearby. Incredibly dangerous, I’m sure you can imagine. But despite the once cosy room now looking particularly vacuous, Jude wasn’t bothered. I’m not sure he even noticed that all the photos I had framed for the wall had been removed and all his toys were locked away in the wardrobe. He is still allowed to play with whatever he wants to from within the cupboard but now he has to ask for it first. It’s no big deal but you know when you already feel horrific guilt and then the reality of what you’ve done starts to sink in. Yep, that.
Jude’s room before he moved in. There is a second window to the left of this window. He no longer has the bedside table (kept throwing it over) and there is the addition of a big armchair and a play tent!
His wardrobes are to the right of this photo as is his sink and vanity unit. Jude also has a lovely new bed.
He’s lucky though. Jude’s bedroom is HUGE so can house a large amount of stuff and still feel spacious. At the moment, he has a bed, a comfy armchair that I lugged up there in the back of my mum’s car, a fluffy rug and a lovely play tent that his Key Worker bought for his birthday. It’s really nice.
Anyway, we have (broadly speaking!) moved on since the days of horrific behaviour at school. Jude’s melt downs have virtually disappeared and when he does have them, he’s learning (not yet learnt!) to control his behaviour and subsequent reactions. Amazing progress considering he’s only been there for eight months. I’m not sure the staff are ready to start putting everything back up on Jude’s walls but with time and Jude’s maturing behaviour, I’m sure we’ll get there someday.
But in the meantime, I want to make his room more fun again. I want to add colour and patterns and whilst I can’t do that with pictures on the wall (they’ve all been put in albums for him to flick through) I can do it in other ways. I was thinking of adding a mural or two to his wall, something beautiful and decorative that he will enjoy looking at and can talk about with his friends. I really like this map design from LionsHome, what do you think? Jude can use all the individual elements in a games of I Spy!
Also I may paint a wall, or at least a section of a wall with blackboard paint. Have you seen it before? It paints on black so you can draw on it with chalks and I just think Jude will love it. This way Jude would be creating his own art and personalising his bedroom at the same time.
As I said, hopefully one day soon I’ll be able to stick his photo frames back on the walls of his bedroom but in the meantime, I’ll have to be a bit more creative as to how we cosy up his bedroom. He spends a lot of time in his bedroom and I can only image that will increase when he turns teen on us next year, so it’s important that it’s the perfect Jude environment for him 🙂
I’d love to hear your suggestions on safe ways to add to Jude’s bedroom <3
*This is a collaborative post but all thoughts, ideas, Judes and words are my own.
