March 9, 2006 9:11 AM
Boys' haircuts - and thinking outside the box
Some of you may remember that I once posted on the best investment I ever made as a mom - learning to cut my boys' hair - which I reckon has saved our family $9-18,000 over the years. For the full skinny, see For Mothers of Boys, which shows you what you need and how easy it is to learn.
Okay, so my oldest son is getting married May 20 to Hattie and she will have to decide whether to take over the haircutting ritual. It really is a sweet bonding thing and my boys come home from college and ask for haircuts, though Ben has had Anna do his a couple times and recently Zach saved his head bald :(
Josh has been letting his hair grow out anyway. Have you noticed long hair for guys is coming back in? I'm amazed when I'm at the middle school to see how many 6th and 7th grade boys are letting their hair grow long. Personally, I like long hair on men - but that may be some weird throwback to my hippie days :)
So my days of cutting my older boys' hair are numbered. I still have the four Downzers to deal with (for those new here, I have four sons with Down syndrome because since the birth of Jonny's younger sister Maddy, we've adopted three other boys with Down syndrome). Jonny had been letting his hair grow long like a picture of an actor he brought me many months ago, but his taste in hair is governed by his latest hero - and I told you that after seeing The State of the Union message he wanted his hair cut like President Bush .
Jesse's (10) hair is pretty easy to cut. His heritage is Iranian/Mexican and his hair is glossy, darkest brown and straight. Dark hair is much easier to cut because it's more forgiving of mistakes. With blonde hair you see every awkward cut.
Justin's (5) likewise. He's Taiwanese so his is also glossy and straight - but black. He really looks cute with the Ryan Seacrest look, but I don't get around to putting gel on it all the time.
So things are still going smoothly, except for Daniel (9), who has a horrible, horrible fear of haircuts and whips himself into a frenzy the minute the clippers or scissors get near him. He is also unusually strong for a kid with Down syndrome and the only way we've been able to cut his hair in recent years is by having Dad and a brother hold him while I try to cut a little without injuring any of them. What a nightmare! And each time is worse because the fear is only reinforced by the unpleasantness (to put it lightly) of the whole operation. The last time, he burst a couple blood vessels in his face and his teacher called to verify that it was caused by the haircut scenario since they have to report such stuff.
In desperation, I asked our pediatrician what to do. I knew she had grown up with a developmentally challenged brother who was very challenging to her parents. I wondered if we needed to sedate him or what. How did her parents handle it? She said they had to sit on him while cutting his hair.
And then she said, "I'm going to suggest something. You need to have an open mind."
Well, yeah, I have an open mind.
"Just let him wear a pony tail."
Duh. It never occurred to me because his hair is so full of cowlicks and looks so weird whenever it gets a little longish. But yeah, we can get past that eventually.
"Is that how your parents handled it?"
"Well, no, because they didn't think like that. But I always wondered why they didn't just put an end to the problem that way."
So now I'm just cutting three boys' hair. Daniel will be the little guy with the pony tail. I'll post pictures as it grows!
Here's how he looks now (taken a few months and a couple haircuts ago):
Posted in Big families, Down syndrome, Family, Mothering | Permalink
Comments
I'm giggling. The last time I tried to save money and cut my husband's hair was about 10 years ago and he was a Corporal in the Marine Corps. I thought, it's so short, how hard can it be? It was so bad that he had to go have it 'fixed' at the barber shop. By the time the whole thing was over with he looked like a new recruit.
We gave up after that. *grin*
He goes in about every other week to have it cut but since I cut my own hair (long and curly - you can't tell where I make a mistake) I figure we still come out ahead considering how expensive it would be to get mine done.
Posted by: Spring | March 9, 2006 10:17 AM
Your Daniel sure reminds me of Evan. Oh the trials we had trying to cut his hair! I can sympathize. Somewhere along the line he got over his fear (not because of anything we learned to do to help him, by the way) & now asks to go to the barber!
Posted by: Lori F | March 9, 2006 10:30 AM
As usual, what a great post!
Posted by: molly | March 9, 2006 1:29 PM
I have to say that I would go for the ponytail look too if or when it gets that difficult to cut Joshua's hair. My Hubby might not agree, in fact I was letting it grow out and then came home from a conference last Saturday to find they had gone to Kool Cuts for Kids. So far, Joshua is so small that we can still hold him while they cut it, the Wiggles videos help too, but as he grows and gets stronger?? I am not so sure! His hair is so thick and wavy, it looks "girly and too pretty" (quote from Hubby) as it gets longer. :-)
Posted by: Adrienne | March 9, 2006 3:37 PM
Hmm...I do the same thing, pull the hair up to uniform length and cut it, it gives it a nice "layer" to it, and hangs really nicely. Of course I had a few 'bad' cuts in there, but thankfully only one was on DH...and he didnt even blame me since the clippers actually BROKE mid cut so it was THEIR fault.
Posted by: Sheri | March 9, 2006 6:30 PM
My husband really wants and enjoys having me cut his hair and so I do it... but I really don't like the results! He doesn't care so long as it isn't in his eyes, but I feel bad about making him look a little funny. It isn't *too* bad when it is short, but it does not grow out well at all. I'm hoping I'll get better over time, but I wish it would happen faster! I do have a kit like you mentioned in your previous post, but we seem to have lost the video in one of our moves. I sure wish we had it though, as I could really use a refresher!
It is a nice time to spend that time together though - we usually get up before the kids do and chat while I try not to mangle his hair.
Posted by: Amber | March 9, 2006 11:34 PM
Ok. Wanna know something funny? My husbands mother cut his hair, and then once we were engaged I started cutting it. You know how you hear about the in-law tension? I have the most wonderful mother in law but I was always so nervous she would be upset I was cutting his hair. Better yet, if she mentioned cutting his hair again I [yes me] got jealous! Well we are married now and I cut it all the time. He has the easiest hair to cut, very thick. I don't think I'll be able to cut my son's hair [ok so he's a baby now] but he will have hair like my brother and I [thin and fine] and last time I cut HIS hair....um, I think he went to super cuts to get it fixed!!!!
Posted by: Kristina | March 10, 2006 12:59 AM
Our youngest had a horrible fear of haircuts, so we would postpone them as long as we could stand. When he reached what we called the "shaggy sheepdog" stage, we'd all grit our teeth, try to turn deaf ears to his screams, and I'd pin him down while my husband cut his hair at high speed.
He's a lot calmer about the process now.
This was excellent preparation for my husband to cut my newphew's hair. He has cerebral palsy and some sensory issues. My brother and sister-in-law let his hair grow quite long --- they figured the poor guy was already having to deal with so much unpleasantness in his life, why torture him with haircuts?
But, when he turned three, my sister-in-law grew tired of everyone thinking he was a cute little girl. My husband came to the rescue and cut his hair, a process that almost left us all in tears. (He's getting a little better about haircuts, but there is no way that they could be done in public.)
You know what? I think the ponytail idea is BRILLIANT!
Posted by: Rebecca | March 10, 2006 9:45 AM
Barbara,
I have a younger brother with Downs and he used to HATE getting his hair cut. It was quite the ordeal, and my parents always cut it as short as possible without shaving it off so they wouldn't have to do it again soon!
My husband has had a couple of bad haircuts lately, so we bought clippers and gave him a home haircut last week. It looks fine and he likes it, though I was a nervous wreck trying to cut it. The clippers were only $20, which is the price of a haircut so we knew we didn't have much to lose!
Posted by: carrie | March 10, 2006 12:41 PM
Our older son has Asperger's Syndrome and he has the same issues with haircutting. He hates it with a violent, frothing, flailing hatred that is immeasurable. It takes both me & my husband to do it - one to hold & one to run the clippers - and by the time we're finished, Steven is one big mess of hair, spittle, snot, tears - all of it. We cannot figure out what upsets him so much about it. He'll let us turn the clippers on & even touch his hand with them to see that they don't hurt, but as soon as we get near his head, he flips out. As it is, we usually use a #2 clipper blade so we only have to do it a couple times a year.
Our baby, Henry, who has Down's, doesn't mind the haircut, though. Only Mommy minds that one, because it turns him from a baby into a boy. ::sob::
Posted by: Christy | March 10, 2006 11:51 PM
My son used to hate haircuts when he was very little. After a few miserable fights I started letting him cut part of the dogs hair (with the dogs clippers of course). And later I put the long clippers on and helped him cut part of his dad's hair. After that he could reach up and start the cut on his own head. At first he had to walk around with just the gaps and hideous cuts he would make because he didn't want any help but later it was OK and he didn't cause such a fuss. This started when he was three. Now he is 14 and just doesn't want it cut because long hair is cool. Oh well.
Posted by: WGreen | March 20, 2006 4:31 PM
My 4 year old son who has Autism can not stand the sight of the clippers. He runs if we bring them out. If my husband and I dont hold him down to shave his head with a #2 clipper. By the time we are done we are all covered with tears, slobber, and hair that we are lined up to take showers to get it all off. If I am not in the mood to fight with him. I start on Friday night after he goes to sleep and I finish on Sunday night. All together it takes me about 5 to 6 hours to cut his hair by hand. And it will look like I just cliped it with the clippers. But we do what we got to do as parents.
Posted by: Strom | August 6, 2006 12:25 AM
