BC-FEA--Parenting-DIY Kids, 1st Ld-Writethru,1009

Kids trade Spongebob for spongepaint with DIY TV

Eds: CORRECTS The Learning Channel now known as TLC.

AP Photo NYLS403, NYLS404, NYLS405

By JENNIFER FORKER

Associated Press Writer

ARVADA, Colo. (AP) -- I knew something was amiss when the knickknacks -- the small bowls, colorful vases, even an unused incense burner -- mysteriously appeared in my living room.

It could only mean one thing: My 10-year-old daughter was watching too much HGTV again.

Hope likes to watch those home design shows as much as anything that airs on Disney or Animal Planet. During the early evening down time, Hope and her sister, Grace, are tuned into "Designed to Sell" or "House Hunters."

A friend's three daughters are similarly fixated, ignoring popular television for HGTV's "Landscapers' Challenge" and "If Walls Could Talk," a favorite of Hope's that blends history and intrigue into a storyline that may sound like a yawner on paper -- we're talking about a house here -- but captivates the children.

"My kids have never seen 'American Idol.' There's nothing wrong with that show, but my kids are so off the grid, it's hilarious," says my friend, Sloane Given. "It's just not really their thing."

They're not alone in the elementary school set. HGTV and other do-it-yourself outlets don't track their child viewership, but hosts like Vern Yip of "Deserving Design" on HGTV say they're often stopped by kids. He calls his elementary-school-aged groupies a "funny little fan base."

Paige Davis, the host of TLC's "Trading Spaces," which launched a new season on Saturday, says parents e-mail her about their children's fixation with the show. (It spawned a Discovery Kids cable channel spinoff, "Trading Spaces: Boys vs. Girls," in 2003, and repeats still air.)

Given's 7-year-old, Lyle, also has taken that next step: Like Hope, she inserts her two cents into her parents' design projects for their suburban home. Recently, Lyle's attention was directed to the back yard.

"When we did our landscaping project this year, Lyle was so into it," Given says. "She wanted to see the plans, she wanted to walk around with the architect and she wanted to help pick out plants."

When Given forgot to include lupines in the yard at Lyle's request, she ran out and bought two lupines for the little girl's next birthday.

"What child gets lupine plants for her birthday?" Given muses.

Lyle's opinions run from plant species to paint chips, from furniture layout to the value of granite countertops. Her mom says it's all thanks to the design shows on HGTV and TLC.

Lori Coens, of Overland Park, Kan., has an 8-year-old son, Dylan, and an 11-year-old daughter, Hayden, who watch the design shows.

"It's better than SpongeBob," says Coens, referring to the popular children's cartoon on Nickelodeon.

The only problem is sometimes Dylan wants to duplicate what he sees on television, "and I'm not going to put a two-story slide in his bedroom," says Coens, an interior decorator.

Both Given's daughter and my own have unleashed their design tastes in their respective bedrooms, arranging and rearranging their possessions -- some so very tiny, as one finds in children's bedrooms -- to suit their changing tastes.

Davis says that's the allure for kids.

"There's no accounting for taste, but what I think 'Trading Spaces' can do is empower children to believe they can make a space their own, whatever that is," Davis says. "It tells them your environment and surroundings are important -- you can treat your things better and you can treat yourself better."

Family therapist Karl Rosston, of Helena, Mont., supports kids having a space to call their own, but he says parents also need to give their children design control over that space, within reason.

"It's important for parents to provide some guidelines and some structure to it, but not too much," he says.

For example, Rosston, who has two children, ages 9 and 11, recommends allowing younger kids to pick out their room colors. Teenagers can have greater say.

"The role for us, as parents, is to help our children to develop a sense of accountability and ownership of their actions," says Rosston. "One of the first ways to do that is to give them that opportunity to create something, and then they own it. And their rooms are a wonderful way for them to do that."

It also helps children develop a sense of independence, Rosston says, but parents need to avoid criticizing their kids' decisions, and not just with room redos.

"Parents have got to be very careful not to condemn," Rosston says. "There's nothing that scars a child faster."

Given approves of her children's home-improvement television fix, and even has nurtured it along the way.

"I'd rather have (Lyle) yammering on about paint colors than repeating some naughty music she's learned somewhere," Given says.

In my own life, I'm careful to quietly return an unwanted object to the storage room and to herald any particularly clever decorating idea that my daughter Hope devises.

The interesting part? She's got more hits than misses. The carefully arranged rocks in a wooden bowl atop the stacked art books? Love it.

I can't help wondering what that says about her mother's design style.