Are you tired of competing with your daughter’s friends, the TV, cell phone and stereo? Are you looking for fresh new ideas of how to break through that tough teenage shell and bond with your daughter? Here is a fun idea. If you don’t have a lot of money or time to redecorate her whole room, consider just focusing on one small area. Redecorating her closet is a small project that isn’t quite as daunting as a full-on room make-over. The closet is a unique place to start and is sure to get her attention. Collaborating with your daughter to come up with fun ideas opens up those lines of communication that are so often shut down with teenagers.



If you’ve got an especially stubborn girl on your hands, you might want to start with a gift to get her creative juices flowing. Buy her some glam hangers and present them with the idea. Glam hangers are hangers decorated with beads that come in a variety of styles and colors. Much more stylish than that array of boring mismatched hangers that she has now. You can find them at http://www.onlykidshangers.com. Using glam hangers helps her express her originality by adding a touch of glamour to her closet. Her clothes will be displayed in a unique way. Who knows, she might even be encouraged to keep that closet organized. There are styles that clip up pants and skirts to keep from wrinkling clothes and bulking up the closet space.

Now that the main part of the closet is dressed up, you can move on to more creative concepts. Doing a creative project together will help you have fun together and bond. Go shopping for unique door knobs or drawer pulls for her closet door. Pick out wacky paint colors and come up with color schemes that match her style or her bedding. Decorating a matching switch plate for her closet light is also a fun little side project.

Get inspired by decorations that she’s already put up in her room. Encourage her to display special photos, artwork, letters or other memorabilia inside or outside of the closet door. This is a great time to open up those communication lines and find out a little about her illusive life. Get her to tell you why certain items are important to her. Her tales might give you ideas for a closet theme, such as soccer, ballet, or music. Keep the closeness alive by being only supportive and non-judgmental. Offer constructive criticism if you must, but make sure that you don’t slip into an argument. Her ideas are the ones that should ultimately end up being the ones displayed. That is, of course, unless your idea happened to be the one that she liked. As shocking as this may be, it could happen. Bribe her with a special sleep-over if she loses interest or doesn’t want to finish.

There’s nothing quite like watching your daughter’s creativity blossom while you bond with her. Teaching her that work can be fun and rewarding is important as well. The finished product should give you both something to talk and laugh about for years to come. Maybe the next time she’s on that cell phone she’ll be bragging about how cool her Mom is.