How Colors in a Child's Room Affect Emotions

Bright Colors

• Many children have stronger reactions to bright colors than dull or dark colors. This is because they associate bright hues with emotional intensity. Red often triggers a connection with anger and alarm, but can also more generally come to be associated with excitement. Children associate yellow and orange with happiness and well-being. In general, bright colors elicit a more positive response because they impart a sense of urgency and excitement that is not found with darker colors.

Dark Colors

• The colors black, gray, brown and other darker hues may elicit sadness and depression in children. A room in which these colors predominate will seem to cast a shadow over children's moods, decreasing feelings of happiness and security and replacing them with feelings of melancholy and worry. Feelings of depression or fear may arise because of the association of the color black with death and the fear of the dark. Some children, however, associate darker colors with boredom. To them, bright colors seem lively, and dark colors seem dull and void of activity.

Green and Blue

• Green and blue have definite effects on most children's emotions. Blue may subconsciously trigger associations with the ocean or lakes, imbuing the child with a serene and calming quality. Green may create a feeling of solitude, peace and silence, as though the child is alone in a forest rather than in his room. Children prone to high-energy episodes and angry tantrums may find that green or blue calms their nerves and sets them at peace. Green or blue walls, curtains or fabrics may create the illusion of retreating from stress, sadness or overwhelming excitement.

How Gender Affects Emotional Associations With Color

• In most cultures, it would come as no surprise that boys generally prefer the color blue while girls prefer the color pink. For the most part, this is a result of the proliferation of traditional gender stereotypes. Boys will play with toy cars in a room with blue walls, and girls will play with dolls in a room with pink walls. It is difficult to say what these colors mean emotionally for children, but the tendency of boys and girls to say their favorite color is blue or pink respectively is in large part due to gender reinforcements they receive from their parents and their peers. What comes of this emotionally is that boys will shy away from pink and purple shades, even if they are drawn to them, because they fear that expressing a positive response would set them apart from the typical ideal boy. The same holds true for girls in reverse. Boys tend to find darker colors comforting more often than do girls. Because dark colors are not the traditional preference for their gender, girls will shy away from claiming a positive association for fear of seeming different.

How Age Affects Emotional Associations With Color

• The emotional effect of color seems to change somewhat with age. Younger children will usually display very direct and simple emotions in connection with primary colors. They will find blues and greens to be tranquil, reds to be exciting and so on, but their reactions will change subtly as they get older. At an early age, children may not yet be impacted by the gender associations with particular colors that are pushed on them by the media and society. But as they get older, around age seven or eight, they will begin to pick up on what's considered appropriate. They will realize that it is more acceptable to like some colors over others, and their emotional responses will become more layered and complex.