Carnival decor: inappropriate for sick kids.

Across the country, children's hospitals and pediatrician's offices are jumping on a "make 'em happy" design trend that is replacing walls of sterile white and hospital green with carnival-like colors and eight-foot caricatures of Barney the Dinosaur. Rebecca Eder, a child development expert at Washington University in St. Louis (Mo.), is raising serious questions about how well the circus decor is meeting the needs of sick youngsters, especially those dealing with traumatic life and death illnesses.

"Imagine for a moment a child facing a mirror for the first time after a severe facial burn. Now, place that child in one of our design award-winning `happy' hospital settings with its bright colors and patterns. The environment is cheerful; the child is not. The carnival-like environment is at best insensitive and at worst harmful to the present reality of the child who is ill, by suggesting denial of the problem at hand as an inappropriate response. The happy-go-lucky setting is at extreme conflict with the inner needs of the parent and child to cope with the reality at hand....

"This feel-good obsession hinders children from identifying their own emotions. It says `here is how you have to feel.' This is an artificial and inappropriate way to manipulate a child's emotions. But the major thing is that it doesn't help children identify, learn about, and think through their emotions."

Eder was determined to develop a design strategy that actually offered some support to youngsters dealing with tough emotional issues, so she teamed up with Michelle S. Anaya, a Los Angeles architect specializing in environmental design for children. The result is a suite of offices and a waiting room decorated with unifying natural themes--ocean, plains...