Did you cut your child's hair off because you couldn't deal with it?

It has been a while since she got it THANK GOD!! I am parinoid about lice! We don't use the chemical treatments that you buy over the counter or by Rx. We use Olive oil and vacuuming as well as the heat from the dryer. Many children have become sick with long term complications from these pesticides. We decided to do it green and do it with out chemicals. It takes a bit longer, but is just as effective and a lot safer!

Olive oil is great stuff! I cook with it and it also makes a nice hand softener - plus you can add sugar to olive oil to make a nice softening scrub for your feet.

Eeeek! You know, as an adult you kind of forget about communicable infestations like this. My daughter got pink eye right after a ballet class and that was a terrible shock to me because I couldn't figure out where or how she could have gotten it. I tracked it back to ballet, preschool, or the play center at my gym and fortunately she was non-contagious by the following morning because I got drops right away. So far there hasn't been any mention of lice at all from any of my kids' schools in the last few years. I remember having checks at school when I was a kid and it was pretty irritating. They'd make everybody take a letter home and then all the parents would have to treat all of the kids. If you didn't get treated, they could refuse to let you back in class, etc. I would definitely treat all of us and wash everything if anything was suspected because lice are awful if they get into your home and all over everything. Most of the stuff available now will work to get rid of it without too much trouble.

I find it very interesting to see how many people have stated they did not like having it done to them... yet they would consider it if their child put up a fuss. I think it would be easier to punish for putting up a fuss and then the child learns that you just don't put up a fuss.

With long hair you have to do one of two things, not fight the texture and fullness - or use product and stylers that help you achieve what you want. If you have thin fine straight hair, keep the ends cleaned up so they don't get raggy and use a light product that keeps it from staticking. If you have thick curly hair, use moisturizing and smoothing products and defrizzers to keep the curls looking nice. Of course you can chemically or heat straighten curly hair if you don't like it, or perm straight hair if you don't like it, but both take a lot of upkeep and the only people who seem to have that kind of time from my recollection is teenagers.

Some short cuts are cute, but what I'm talking about is basically giving a little girl a boy cut, I'm not talking about a cute bob or to collar bone or whatever. Most little girls want to be noticed as girls right away and I've seen a few with boy cuts and had to do a double take. There's also a big difference between a nice cut/style and a whack job, and it's the second one that steams me up.

I understand the frustration factor but I know MY hair is so important to me I feel like cutting it off for a reason like that is like cutting off a body part. Just because hair doesn't have nerve endings doesn't make it an 'okay' thing to do even out of frustration. Know what I mean?

Um yes, no kidding. One thing that worries me with small kids getting ahold of scissors is that they could seriously hurt themselves, poke an eye, cut their face or ear or really anything. I dated a guy who had a 3 year old daughter back when I was 20. She got ahold of scissors while she was at her mom's house (mom was 'entertaining' a guest and had no clue her 3 year old had a scissors) and butchered her hair badly and scratched her neck. My boyfriend was beside himself and ripped her a new one when he went to pick her up because he knew she could have hurt herself badly enough to have to go to the ER - we were lucky it was just her hair. she was a young three and not particularly coordinated - and they were SEWING SHEARS type scissors!!

How old is your daughter? I changed my avatar to a current picture of my daughter. When she was younger she would pull anything and everything out of her hair. She also would pull anything and everything out of MY hair. As a result, for awhile, neither of us wore anything in our hair and I also stopped wearing earrings and necklaces and other things since she'd just pull on them. She likes hair pretties now and sometimes I will do her hair - but not all the time. When I have no time, I just put conditioning cream in it and some detangler spray and comb it when it's wet so it doesn't snarl up.

Same here, same here. One of the reasons I posted this discussion is because I have indeed been faced with very blunt parents who have actually told me that they cut off their child's hair because they didn't have time and they didn't like doing it. It sounds like a very poor attitude and a very lazy thing to do. There was actually a guy I talked to on yuwie a few times and he had some lovely pictures of his daughter.. until I got to the third album. In that picture she was almost bald, and I asked him about it. He told me that she cut off one side so he cut all of it short... and I don't understand. There are ways to blend hair without having to cut it all off, and I don't care who says it can't be done. Is Olivia's hair very curly? I'm not sure what your favorite style is, but I love love love naturally curly hair. Alas mine is like stick straight without even any volume, but I did perm it for years as a teen to get my curl fix.

Bleh. Did you like it okay and did you start taking care of it so she wouldn't cut it off again? LOL! I'm just trying to figure out this level of frustration. It must be really bad, because with hair I haven't reached it. With other things, certainly. When my daughter started changing her clothes five times a day, I took her clothes and put them in a room she couldn't get in. She would put the cast off outfit directly in the hamper and I had told her that I wasn't going to wash clothing she wore for 10 minutes.

My daughter had a lot of hair when she was born but I didn't think it was TOO much... lol. Her hair is long now but it's not super thick or anything so I have a hard time understanding how a baby would have so much hair that they'd be sweating everywhere. It'll grow, hopefully it won't be as hot by then.

LOL! This is one reason I tend to use hair ties and scrunchies and ribbons more in the summer, to get our hair off our necks. Boys actually look quite cute with buzzed hair. Unfortunately I don't think self-haircutting accidents or the Brittney Spears buzz look is going to catch on for girls.

Awww. Do you have long hair now? I always wished I had thick curly hair. I'd have taken care of it myself though so I wouldn't have LET anybody try to cut it or keep it short. GRRRR. I was pretty insistent that my long straight hair stay long, and I permed it constantly for about 6 years. I was a teen in the late 80s and early 90s - remember the huge fluffy bangs? That was me!

I agree with you! My daughter's hair is long and I think it is beautiful. She gets compliments on her hair all the time, even when it is messy lol. Some of my personal conviction comes from how I feel about my own hair, and my daughter sees me take care of mine so she also helps take care of hers. =)

HI mescue, Welcome to mylot! I hope you enjoy it here! Feel free to ask if you have any questions, I'm always happy to help new members if I can. I will request you as a friend. If you accept you can pm me. I keep my hair at or below my shoulders too. It just feels better and looks better, to me anyway.

Hi! Welcome to mylot (and my unscientific poll on cutting hair). I am still almost in shock at the amount of respondents whose parent(s) cut their hair off because the kids wouldn't let them brush it. I guess my question is now - when you were a kid, WHY didn't you let your parents brush it, or if you didn't like that, why didn't you at least do it yourself? LOL! I never liked having messy raggy looking hair. I probably brushed my own hair more than most of my friends did. They still make the same detangler they made 30ish years ago (johnson and johnson) so that's what I bought at first for my daughter. We have graduated up to some of the ones that match her kid shampoos and conditioners and smell like fruit.

My mom has a hard head so I guess she assumed I did as well. It hurt when she would brush my hair! I actually like my hair short. When I do try to grow it out, it just goes up in a pony tail and eventually I will get bored and get it cut again!

LOL! I've always had long hair. I guess I'm kind of lazy, it's a good thing i don't have to style it because I wouldn't. I spent like hours on it when I was a teen and now I'm lucky to take 10 minutes on it after a shower.

This was part of the point I was trying to make with this discussion. When you don't consider the feelings or thoughts of the little girl (or boy) and just use your own frustration, what have you taught your child? That instead of teaching the correct behavior (don't scream and fuss and fight with mommy) that you are the authority and can just do whatever mean thing you want? It has other damaging points as well. If it isn't a nice cut or style and it looks horrible, kids will tease. Kids are very honest, if something looks pretty, they will gather around. If something looks ugly, they will say so. They aren't like adults and they don't have the skill of filters or tact, I mean they learn what we teach but developmentally they can't adjust what they say to make sure it's true without hurting someone's feelings, they just blurt things. Girls don't want to be thought of as boys and boys don't want to be thought of as girls - not at first glance, under normal circumstances. My older daughter was mistaken for a boy before - however I don't blame myself because SHE chose to have her hair that short and wear the same types of clothes her brother wears. My personal thought is that people are plain stupid, it's obvious she's a girl, she has boobs lol. I have a funny story related to that, well it wasn't so funny for ME but it was for her =) She was almost 13 when my husband gave in and let her cut all her hair off. Granted this was her decision. Anyway, I had to take her and her brother to get a vaccine for school. They both look very similar, and they REALLY did 5 years ago when this happened. I don't look like them but I am very obviously a girl. I ended up going to the health dept because that's what the letter from the school told us to do, quicker than making an appt. When the nurse came to administer the shots, she accused me of being Britt (my daughter) because she decided at first glance that either I had two sons or I was trying to get out of getting a shot. I pointed out to her that I was not 13 and that was indeed my DAUGHTER, not my son. I don't know who was more irritated on the way home, she or I, but she did think it was funny that they thought I was her.

No.LOL.It was kind of like a bob.It kind of hard to explain.My haircut came below my ears but was about chin length

Mushroom... like Dorothy Hamill? I might be dating myself by mentioning her, she was a skater and I think that's how her hair was cut, in like a layered mushroom LOL. I do not have thick hair, I could never pull off anything layered.

How old was she when you did this? While I agree completely about consequences for her choice, it still seems a shame. If she was old enough to have taken care of it herself, why didn't she do it (if you don't mind me asking)? She may not have been, I don't know. My daughter started learning how to brush and/or comb her own hair when she was around 3. I still tend to do it for her instead because if I let her do it, it takes half an hour =)

Aww.. baby curls. I don't know that I would want to cut simply because of that. A trim sure but cutting off the curls no.