Simple Feng Shui Inspired Environmental Considerations for Children’s Health in the Home. By Sherry Burton Ways

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Simple Feng Shui Inspired Environmental Considerations for Children’s Health in the Home. By: Sherry Burton Ways

Feng Shui is a powerful tool to create a healthy, loving safe environment for children no matter what room they are in your home.  Emotional and physical support using Feng Shui can enhance all the stages in a child’s development.

So what is Feng Shui?  Feng Shui is pronounced ‘Fung Shvee’ and literally translated means ‘wind and water.’  It embodies the 7,000 year old ancient Chinese art of placement which balances and enhances the environment. 

I invite you to be a Feng Shui detective and analyze using your intuition and senses things about your home to ensure it is healthy and vibrant for continued growth and production for your child.

First, think about or observe whether or not your child is having trouble breathing or has asthma or other concerns.  If he or she does, ask:

What is the air quality like in your child’s room or the entire home as a whole?  Have you checked your home’s ventilation system?  Do your air ducts need to be cleaned out or replaced?  I was working with a client who informed me that her daughter was having a lot of allergies.  This concerned me.  As we began a total redesign of her home, we learned that the air ducts were never cleaned in her home and was in serious need for replacement.  In addition, one of the air ventilation system was located just outside her bedroom door!

Ways to combat indoor air pollution to protect your family:

• Do not smoke or allow smokers in your home
• Get your chimney cleaned regularly and your appliances serviced
• Open windows at different sides of the home to create cross ventilation
• Seal cracks in floor edges, pipes and walls especially basement
• Buy an air-filter.
• Use safe non toxic cleaning materials

We all live with electrical appliances.  However, do we really understand what the effects are of these appliances in our home and to our children?  The entire earth is permeated by magnetic lines of energy that criss-cross over its surface.  These lines are similar to our nervous system along which travels natural radiation or the electro-magnetic field otherwise known as EMFs.  Millions of adults and children may face an increased risk of cancer and other diseases because they are exposed to electro-magnetic radiation from power lines and household electrical appliances.  Even electrical disturbances from electronic equipment in your child’s bedroom can increase the risk of disease as well as sleep deprivation.  These include things like computers, televisions, radios, alarm clocks, CD players, bedside lights, etc.  You want to keep these items at a minimum or at least in a closed armoire or cabinet so these do not affect the health of your child.

There are several ways you can reduce the positive ions in your home that may be harmful to your child:

• Keep electrical equipment away from your child’s bed
• Get an ioniser
• Keep a comfortable indoor humidity by ventilating to the outside.
• Use less electrical equipment
• Burn cleansing and purifying aromatherapy oils.

Next  assess the clutter level of your home and your childs room.  It is generally a rule that children watch and emmulate adult behavior.  So let’s examine whether or not you are living a clutter free lifestyle.  You see, in the world of Feng Shui, clutter does not allow for the free circulation of good energy in the home.  When energy circulates, responses and moves about a space it will clog up or become depleted when too much clutter is in place.  This does not create a good situation for anyone including your child in the home.

Some things to do to create a clutter free environment for your child:

• Take time to clear any clutter in spaces outside the child’s room

• Create a clear system of organization to clear out your child’s clutter.  Toy boxes, shelving and other systems are great to implement and are not very expensive- check out resources and products at stores like Target or IKEA. 
• Teach your child a clear and simple organization system in a way that will  help them to stick to it.
•  Allow for patience and time to use whatever system you come up with so that your child get’s acclimated to it.  Reward your child in some healthy way when the system is used successfully.

The main feng shui goal in transforming living spaces into healthy ones for children is to create a healthy, loving and safe environment for all who enter. 

Sherry Burton Ways is the Principal Designer of Kreative Ways & Solutions, LLC a Washington, DC décor firm focused on creating spaces that inspire you through feng shui, color therapy and interior environment coaching.  She is the author of the forthcoming book, Feel Good Spaces:  Decorating Your Home for the Body, Mind and Spirit.  Wealth Sistas Publishing.