I recently decided to repaint my bedroom Sherwood Forest green because it reminded me of the woods where my dad took me and my brothers to swing on grapevines. This surprised me, because green is not on my list of favourite colours. When I thought about my decision, I realised that I had only chosen green because of that special childhood connection.
Over the years, I have been fascinated with children's perceptions of colours and their passion for their favourite colours. Why do girls like pink and purple? Why do boys prefer blue and green? Why do children care so much about having a favourite colour? Marilyn Read, an associate professor of design and human environment at Oregon State University, has written a great deal about children and colours.
She has stated in numerous articles that children's favourite colours–down to specific hues–are "socially constructed," but she believes children's feelings about colours are more than acting out society's demands for constructing female and male stereotypes.She believes children choose favourite colours at different stages of their social development, and they use colours to feel good about themselves and their world. Colour can be used to create an environment conducive to learning.
Read studied the impact of colour in preschool buildings and found that children were more co-operative in rooms with one wall painted a different colour. One red wall, she said, made children more co-operative. Too many different colours in a room made children overstimulated, even anxious.
From her research, Read learned that a single bold colour made students feel a sense of security. Single-colour curtains–as opposed to curtains with patterns–also seem to be more conducive to settling and learning. Colour didn't matter when there was no pattern in a curtain.The result was the same: a calmer child in the classroom.In general, Read says, "If people want children to act in a calmer way, they should go with blue or another cooler colour."
When it comes to colour preferences, her research shows distinct differences in taste, even in hues or shades of colours. Read discovered that boys tend to prefer yellow-based reds, while girls prefer blue-based reds. It is unusual, she says, for boys or girls to like orange.Still, there are children who choose orange as a favourite colour. She's not sure why.
All of this might seem like a trivial matter, but colours really do matter at home and at school when it comes to nurturing happy, calm and confident children.A simple mistake like choosing a colour that is too bright can mean a child sleeps less at night.
Just one hour less of sleep can wreak havoc on a child's life, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman state in Nurture Shock New Thinking about Children. In the chapter entitled The Lost Hour, the authors present research that suggests an hour less of sleep can contribute to ADHD, obesity, depression, general fogginess and memory loss.On the other hand, choosing a colour that is too dull can keep a child from wanting to be in a room. This too is not conducive to settling down to sleep.
Choosing the right colour for a child's bedroom just might do the trick of getting a child to settle down earlier in order to get that extra crucial hour of sleep every night.Researchers at the University of California found young children assigned positive feelings to bright colours and negative feelings to dark ones.
Boyatzis and Varghese also found that boys in general were more positive towards darker colours, while girls preferred softer colours. Children associated red with being angry, blue with being sad and yellow with being happy. They assigned colours to feelings.All of this lays the foundation for one of the most important aspects of children's perception of colour: perception of race.There comes a day when children look around and apply colour to the people they see around them.
Adults usually panic when children begin associating colours with people. Adults immediately assume this is a sign of prejudice. Researchers say that is not really true.Children are simply trying to make sense of the world around them. Children associate colours with everything in their world–including people.The following Web sites offer some invaluable information about the psychology of colours.
1. The Effects of Color on People. An interesting site about how colour affects us with information gathered and collated by Resene, a paint company in Australia and New Zealand. This is not scientific information, but it makes interesting reading. www.resene.com/homeown/use_colr/coloursforliving.htm
2. Red! No, Blue! No, Light Blue! Why do little kids care so much about favourite colours? By Lucinda Rosenfeld April 18, 2012 www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2012/04/small_children_and_favorite_colors_research_into_why_colors_are_so_important_to_kids_identity_.html
3. The Best Color for Kids' Rooms. Some ideas of dos and don'ts when it comes to painting kids rooms. www.houzz.com/ideabooks/1315/list/The-Best-Colors-for-Kids–Rooms
�2 Next week: What happens when children begin to assign colour to people?
