Kids furniture has come a long way from car beds and french provincial canopy beds. My Room, an entertaining new furniture collection from Nickelodeon and Lea Furniture will have toddlers, tweeners and teens alike begging for a bedroom makeover. Read more at www.whatsnewathome.wordpress.com
According to Metropolitan Home magazine (Dec ‘08) - nearly 50% of American children have a television set in their bedroom. The statistic included children from age 6 (!) to age 17.
The stat might reflect a more urban population … but if it includes suburbia, what happened to the family room?
Once I got over my shock, as a furniture gal, I wondered where the TV sets are going. Assuming these kids aren’t all getting flat screen TVs installed on their wall (that might be the next shocking statistic), where are the TV sets being placed? On the dresser? desk? a separate TV stand or gaming device?
Something for furniture manufacturers to think about.
A record number of babies were born in the USA in 2007, suggesting a baby ‘boomlet’ is under way. To be considered a real boom, demographers say percent increases year-to-year have to be larger than the single-digit increases we’re seeing now, but regardless, 4,315,000 births were recorded last year. The last time the number was near this high was in 1957, in the middle of the Baby Boom.
The reasons for the boomlet include a ’perfect storm’ of factors, according to Arthur Nelson of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The demographer attributes the spike to: more immigrants having children, professional women who delayed childbearing until their 40s now having them, and the large number of women in their 20s and 30s in the population (these are the Echo boom, now called Millenials or Gen Y).
The average number of births per woman was also 2.1 in 2006, the highest since 1971… suggesting demand for kids furniture should remain strong over the coming years.
Data source: USA Today, July 17, 2008
Rocking chairs may be nostalgic, charming and even old-fashioned… but research shows they’re also remarkably therapeutic.
* a rocking chair used in a classroom in Washington State recently helped students, especially those with Attention Deficit Disorder to conentrate and stay on task
* a 12-week NY State Dept of Health study of 25 nursing home residents diagnosed with dementia, showed that crying, anxiety, tension and depression dropped in 11 patients; several also requested less pain medication
* John F. Kennedy rocked to ease the pain of a back injury from WWII
* rocking chairs were regularly used at the turn of the century in American hospitals
For more information on the benefits or rocking chairs (including help with everything from arthritis, autism, chronic fatigue, varicose veins and stroke, just to mention a few)… read more at www.rockingchairtherapy.org.
Although it’s estimated that up to 30% of childrens’ beds sold are bunk beds, many parents are nervous about buying them. And they’re not wrong to be concerned.
According to a recent study by the Center for Injury Research and Policy of the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, nearly 36,000 kids are treated in emergency rooms for bunk bed accidents each year in the U.S.. The results of the survey, published in the Journal Pediatrics, indicated that although most injuries aren’t fatal, over half the injuries are to the head, neck or face, and include:
30% of children suffering serious cuts
24% suffering bruises and scrapes
20% suffering fractures
over 10% sustaining concussions
Over half of the injuries are to boys, the report said, and most inuries result from a fall. Over half of the injuries occured in children under 6, but there was a jump in accidents among 18-21 year olds, who were more than twice as likely to be hurt as kids age 14-17.
“Bunk beds were one of the hardest things for me to go to because of the accidents,” said mother of two boys, Tiera McMahon of Fort Worth Texas, in an msnbc.com article (June 4, 2008) reporting on the research study. Along with the 41-year old mother’s advice to keep the bedrooms off-limits when company is over, the article offered basic safety advice for bunk beds:
1. Don’t let children younger than 6 sleep in top bunks
2. Make sure there are guardrails on both sides of the upper bunk, even if one side is against a wall
3. Make sure that gaps in guardrails are no bigger than 3.5″ to prevent entrapment and strangulation
4. Use the proper size mattress in the bunk bed (thinner profile mattress on top bunk)
5. Don’t place the bunk bed too close to ceiling fans or dressers
6. Make sure bunk beds and ladders are sturdy and secure
7. Don’t let kids play on bunk beds
8. Make sure bunk bedposts don’t have knobs or finials that can catch clothing and other objects
9. Use night lights to help children find ladders in the dark.
Consumers want design help, but most of them aren’t getting it from designers. At least not directly; interior designers are most valued for ideas… based on what they did in someone else’s home. The results of a consumer survey on kids room design by Kids/Today and HGTV show the trend.
Consumers look for ’design ideas’ on TV (85%), in magazines (80%), on the Internet (34%, including retail / manufacturer / magazine & newspaper sites), from a store salesperson (9%), from model homes, store displays, books and catalogs (9%), or from interior designers (7%).
Consumers are also more likely to get ‘design help’ from a friend or family member (61%), even from a salesperson (7%) than from an interior designer (6%).
Although specific to kids rooms, these results are likely similar for other areas of the home based on the majority of ‘design ideas’ in the media being for non-kids rooms. The results also confirm that consumers welcome design ideas when they buy home furnishing products (in-store and on-line), and that those ideas may improve their likelihood to buy.
Source: Kids Today magazine (May ‘08)
Based on demographic changes, migration and birth rates, consumer spending on youth furniture is expected to grow 23.5% between 2007 and 2012, from $5.1B to $6.3B, according to projections by Easy Analytic Software Inc (NY).
Projections for top growth states include Nevada (37.4%), Arizona (35.6%), Idaho (30.2%), Florida (29.4%), Texas (29.2%), Georgia (28.7%), North Carolina (27.3), Colorado (26.7%), and New Mexico (25.8%), and Washington, 25.7%).
Source: Furniture/Today, 2008
If you haven’t already noticed it, it’s a trend to watch: more family-oriented marketing campaigns from industries as varied as real estate, cars, video games, electronics and food… and hopefully furniture.
In part, it’s due to the growing number of people raising children in the city. In Manhattan, for example, the number of families with children under 18 grew nearly 5% between 2000 and 2006, according to US Census Bureau.
Campaigns are varied, but many are targeting the 8-18 adolescent. As an example, amenities for the older child are the latest twist in condo development, according to Crain’s New York Business magazine (Dec 10, 2007). Developers are including game rooms, swimming, karate and roof-top astronomy lessons, greater insulation between kids bedrooms and living rooms, and more. In each case, parents can be close by without hovering.
“While playrooms were obligatory for new developments a few years ago, game rooms and Internet access are the must-haves now,” the article said.
Stay tuned for more in 2008 on this shift toward marketing ‘family’ rather than just young couples in the media.
It makes parents crazy. Why can’t their kids clean their rooms? Do they really enjoy living in such chaos?
“Keeping a tidy room just isn’t on the adolescent’s radar; it’s not that important to them,” says Michael Bradley, clinical psychologist and author, in Good Housekeeping Magazine (May ‘07, “This Room is a Mess”). Bradley’s comments are supported by recent findings from the National Institute of Mental Health. According to brain-scan studies, an adolescent’s frontal lobe - responsible for organizing, planning and paying attention, is still under construction. According to the Good Housekeeping article, “this stunning obliviousness to self-made chaos may be rooted in biology… so it may not be that kids won’t organize the mess; it’s that they can’t.”
The article describes the efforts of three moms who successfully got their kids to declutter. One of the mom’s strategy was to make a place for every item by sorting and storing items in specific categories.
The kind of “planned storage” is one of the best ways we can declutter homes or kids rooms - and the way furniture is designed can help. Getting organized is about more than a chest of drawers - it requires understanding how kids live, what they live with, and how more structured storage helps them stay organized.
For more information on planned storage and a manual for the home furnishing trade, view our Market Shift report: ORGANIZED HOME: how planned storage is changing furniture design.
Just a few results from a 2006 American Baby Group survey of nearly a thousand new and expectant mothers, published by Kid’s Today:
* 61% seek out baby products that will help save time
* 41% use as few stores as possible to shop for baby and family / 29% shop for all or most items for baby at one store
* 87% of those with Internet access research baby-related information online. 50% of those are purchasing online
* baby/infant items represent close to 40% of Internet purchases
More survey results available from Kids Today, Sept 2007. Survey conducted by Zeldis Research Associates