[AbbieB]

Does anyone else have a child that just can't help but cut his/her own hair?

My DD has done this every few months since she was 2. She just decides to chop a chunk of hair out of the back so she can play with it, cut her bangs because they are bothering her, cut her hair to be pretty, cut her hair because she saw Momma cutting Daddy's hair, and other reasons i can not remember.

She also likes to cut her arm and leg hair. FTR until this holiday season I had not shaved my legs in 5/6 years and I do not always shave my armpits. DH has a beard so he does not shave. DD's interest in cutting her leg and arm hair has been around since she 3 years now. She asked me if she could have her arms and legs waxed after seeing me wax my legs.

What is going on with this?

She is not hurting herself. She is very responsible with scissors and scissor safety. She actually did a fantastic job on her bangs.

Lately she has expressed a very strong desire for Rapunzel, princess, Barbie, mermaid hair. I'd say about 6 months ago she started with this desire. $ months ago she cut a small chunk out of the side and we had a long talk about how cutting her hair keeps it short. If she wants long hair she needs to keep the scissors out of it. She got it.

I have reiterated this when ever I see her get "the look" when cutting other things or after she sees me give DH a buzz cut. I've let her check out the clipper tool. She pretends to cut my hair with the clipper guards.

Today, she was outside cutting her special tree (a scrubby weed tree/bush that is allowed to live for the sole purpose of DD being aloud to break off branches, cut the leaves off, hit it with a stick, and feed it to her "pet" bugs. She left the scissors out there and remember them when we were cleaning up the porch toys for the night. So I send her out to get them and int he 2 seconds she was out there she cut a huge chuck out of the side of her hair. "Look Mommy. Look at me. Do you see anything different?" I just sank onto the couch and teared up from shock and dismay.

Any other Mommas go through this? Any other stories to share?

Please don't flame me about letting her have access to scissors. We home school and use them all the time. 99% of DD's scissor use is for the good. It's just this 1%.

 

[2xy]

Each of my boys cut their hair once, and only once. Both of them chose the spot right in the middle of their foreheads, and they had that kind of longish hair that some call a mushroom cut or surfer cut (about ten years ago). Their heads had to be buzzed to even everything out, since they chopped their hair nearly to the scalp. Weird how they did exactly the same thing, three years apart, at the same age.

My uncle seriously wanted to be a barber when he grew up, just like his uncle. When he was six and my mom was four, he gave her a crew cut. My grandma cried over her little girl's hair, but proudly said he did a "damned good job."

 

[Porcelain Interior]

I'm not going to flame you about the scissors, but it does seem that she's not ready to use them without supervision.

If her idea of a good scissor time is cutting her hair off and that bothers you, you need to put the scissors up unless you are right there with her while she's using them.

We did have to put scissors up for a while.

Worst case scenario- she'll be a fabulous hairdresser.

 

[pranamama]

my youngest was like that, she had very strong opinons about how she wanted her hair to look. She cut her bangs off because she felt strongly about it. I let her, and now that she is 6 she is past that stage, and growing out long bangs. Her hair is really long. I don't regret letting her have her hair her way.

 

[MtBikeLover]

My DD is the same way and you won't get any flames from me on the scissors. My kids use scissors all the time so I am not going to put them away either. And it doesn't really bother me that she cuts her hair. It saves me money by not having to pay the beauty salon to do it

When I asked her why she cut it one day she said "It was in my eyes". She also cuts her hair when she gets a knot that won't come out.

I figure she will grow out of this stage - and hair does grow back so it isn't like any real harm is being done.

 

[Fuamami]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AbbieB "Look Mommy. Look at me. Do you see anything different?"

This is so cute!

I hope you take lots of pics of the haircuts. That's my only input.

 

[serenekitten]

I did this as a kid -- on two separate occasions, when I was about 2 and 3. In my case, I cut my own bangs because Mom kept saying over and over, "I need to trim your bangs!" and she'd never take the time to do it. (Fine, Mom! I'll do it for you! ... Why are you upset with me?)

I wish I could offer some advice, but I'm afraid I've none to give.

 

[dancindoula]

Truthfully? If she's responsible with the scissors 95% of the time that's awesome.....but put them AWAY when she can't be supervised with them. Since the sight of her cutting her hair yet again puts you in tears this is obviously something important to you, and that's fine! Put them away so that she can enjoy them responsibly for crafts and you can relax the rest of the time. She's FIVE! She has lots of time for unsupervised scissor time in her future - it's ok to have a little boundary about this subject for now until she can be trusted to be 100% responsible, or until her styling her own hair no longer bothers you.

 

[JD5351]

I did it when I was that age....

My mom found out when we got these pictures back from school...lol
http://i499.photobucket.com/albums/r...0410091539.jpg

I cut it at school. Each day, I would snip the very end. She went out and bought me some of those boring scissors that only cut paper.

 

[lilyka]

yes my dd was like this. droveme craze. finally I threatened to shave her head the next time she did it. that finally stopped it. I think her sisters first sentence was "no cut Lily's hair" because poor lily's first hair cut was a mullet thanks to her sister. everytime my poor baby saw scissors she said "no cut Lily's hair"

i think it also helped that once her sisters mullet grew out she was really quite beautiful and everyone . . EVERYONE felt the need to comment on it. since madeline always had really awful hair from her self styled cuts no one ever commented on her. kinda sucks but that is what happens when you are always cutting your hair in weird ways.

I may have also bribed her with pin k hair dye . . . . I can't remember . . .

and I agree you have to put the scissors away. even my now 12 year old has to ask permission to use the scissors. And it is a good habit to put your things away anyway.

 

[confustication]

DD did this a couple times. I was not amused.

She hasn't done it in a couple years now, and in fact, I had to bribe her to cut her hair into a pretty short cut recently so she could manage it on her own. Now she just wants to cut MY hair.

 

[lindberg99]

Have you asked her why she cuts her hair? Maybe she wants a short cut? You could show her some examples of short cuts and see if she would like one of those better.

My former neighbor's daughter used to cut her hair quite often. She started shaving her legs and I think her arms too the summer after 1st grade when she was 7. She said that having hairy legs made her feel ugly and she didn't like it. She also has pretty short hair on her head. She had some anxiety after they moved and it manifested itself by her pulling out her eyelashes and eyebrows. I guess she just doesn't like hair much.

 

[Lisa1970]

LOL..is she friends with my 7 yr old son? My 7 yr old does not even want his eye lashes!! Not kidding!!! He is a chronic cutter of his hair.

 

[Lisa1970]

Oh..he rids of the eye lashes by pulling on them. He will get really close to the mirror and say how awful they are as they are so thick and then start pulling at them. I think maybe he is tapering that..and his last haircut was in Feb, so...we will see.

 

[Lisa1970]

My experience too..unless you homeschool her and lock the scissors in a lockbox, and really hide the keys, and never let her go to anyone else's house, she will find a scissors again eventually. I took the scissors completely away. There were none. But then my children went to preschool and regular school....and relatives houses and so on.

 

[Lisa1970]

I want to add the good news. Because I never let my children have scissors, they were considered delayed in kindergarten. None of them knew how to use scissors!! They all needed special therapy to learn,not kidding! But when the first time they get the scissors is the first day of kinder and they just sort of stare at them and have no clue, well, they get referred for help. LOL. However, I am quite quite certain that your daughter will not need the extra help..she will pass scissors skills with flying colors in kindergarten.

 

[Lisa1970]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2xy Each of my boys cut their hair once, and only once. Both of them chose the spot right in the middle of their foreheads, and they had that kind of longish hair that some call a mushroom cut or surfer cut (about ten years ago). Their heads had to be buzzed to even everything out, since they chopped their hair nearly to the scalp. Weird how they did exactly the same thing, three years apart, at the same age. My uncle seriously wanted to be a barber when he grew up, just like his uncle. When he was six and my mom was four, he gave her a crew cut. My grandma cried over her little girl's hair, but proudly said he did a "damned good job."

That is sooo cute!! LOL

 

[library lady]

nak

My oldest was/is a chronic hair cutter and we hid the scissors. It was terrible because DH would hide the scissors so good that I couldn't find them. She could find the silly things but I couldn't. It drove me absolutely crazy. She has beautiful hair now but things were pretty ugly there for a while.

 

[limabean]

No flames about the scissors, but I guess if you're deciding to not put them away then you need to make peace with the hair cutting. I'm sure eventually your talks will resonate and she'll develop the impulse control to resist snipping because she has a long-term goal of long hair, but in the meantime it sounds like there'll be some snips here and there.

A bunch of cut-hair photos would make an awfully cute photo album page!

 

[Luckiestgirl]

I'm reading this post because I have a 4-year-old daughter obsessed with scissors, though she hasn't yet cut her own hair, only because she really wants it long.

She has, however, cut the fringe off my favorite throw, the tail off her brother's special wooden toy horse, and the "z" straps on $35 sneakers we bought a day earlier. I also stopped her just before she snipped her younger brother's hair.

She also has a thing for sticky substances. She damaged the screen on one of our computers by coating it with chapstick, and also used chapstick to spell her brother's name on our couch. I have also caught her using a stick of butter to "paint" the recliner.

Dh is always like, why do you let her use the scissors unsupervised? And I say, because she's very artistic, and I have two other kids. I can't watch her constantly, y' know?