Raising a child in the 21st century is a day to day challenge. Being a child of the sixties myself, I thought that the issue of how kids wear their hair would have been laid to rest long ago. Wrong! Now that I have a fourteen year old daughter that has just started high school (no more middle school, thank you Jesus!) I realize that conflicts about hair are here to stay.
The fact that I am an award winning hairstylist with years of experience makes absolutely no difference to my child. I can't count the number of times she's said, "No way you're touching my hair. You don't know what you're doing!". My wife says to ignore her because she's just trying to yank my chain.
"AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!"
Let's just say that, I know that physical abuse is wrong, but I understand the motivation.
So, if your kid is insisting on wearing their hair longer, shorter, wilder, crazier or just plain uglier than you'd like, you need to just let it go and save your energy for something more important. A question like, "Mom, should I drop out of school now or wait until after I have the baby?" will make you forget all about the time she shaved the hair off of one side of her head.
Now here are a few things you will want to get all up in their grill about (forgive me, I talk to a fourteen year old every day / ask your own kid to interpret):
- Changing their hair color as frequently as they change their socks. Yes, Lady Gaga does it, but she has a team of pros that take care of that for her. Plus, it's really a wig anyway. Hair color is not like paint and it works in a very different way. At a certain point the hair is going to turn jet black or some weird mix of colors and probably break off. If it can be fixed by a professional it's going to cost a lot of money. I mean hundreds of dollars. Probably your dollars.
- Using "at home" chemical hair relaxers. It's not easy like it says on the box, it'll stink up your house and it can give you severe chemical burns! Even if it turns out okay, the residue stays in your hair until you cut it out, which can cause future chemical treatments to react and melt off their hair! I'm not exaggerating on that one.
- The rules are the rules. Most schools have some sort of guidelines regarding hair. Make sure that your son knows that sporting a yard long hot pink Mohawk is not worth repeating eight grade over. He can't impress the babes if they won't let him through the front door.
- If it takes an impossibly long time to maintain every day. My daughter was late for school every day for at least two weeks because of the time it took to flat iron her beautiful, naturally wavy hair. My solution was to take her to my salon and perform a "Japanese" straightener for her, which left it silky and pin straight. A week later she asked me for a waving wand for Christmas so she could have soft wavy hair like the other girls were now wearing. She's now late for school because of the time it takes to put wave back into her beautiful pin straight hair. So really, what do I know?
I'm starting to rethink that whole physical abuse thing. Good luck!
For more advice on taking care of your child's hair visit my website: HowToCutChildrensHair.com
