My Daughter BUTCHERED her hair

I say a fitting punishment would be to let her stew in this haircut for a few weeks. That way she will learn a lesson and you will have time to save up a few bucks for a trip to the "hair shop". I know it's frustrating, kids have such beautiful hair! But it's a girl thing. I totally cut my own hair when I was 12 and my parents were at the grocery store. Needless to say, it was awful!

Hang in there, sister.

guess I can add my story

I was a retired hairdresser and was suppose to cut my DD4 hair for a picture taking....well I wasn't fast enough and so when I was at work[night time] my DD cut her own hair,,,DH in the basement

I come home to a crying kid ,,,not the one who cut her hair but the sister who was afraid I be sooooo mad..yep I was

the only thing you can think is

it will grow it will grow it will grow

sending good vibes.............most of us have been there,,,it will be OK

picture taking was canceled

It won't be the first bad self-haircut the hairdresser has seen, and it certainly won't be the last. I think it's a rite of passage for children and their parents to mangle the hair at least once.
Soon you will look back on this event and laugh. I promise.
Rose

seems to be only the girls though doesn't it?? For once the boys are actually smarter than us! I didn't do it to myself, as far as I remember, but my DD did. About the same age too. Only one side though and I let her stew and didn't get it cut for a couple of weeks.

Speaking of the guys not doing it... my dad tried to 'trim' his wet fringe just before an early job interview, and you know how that goes... he kept trying to straighten it and before he knew where he was it was REALLY short. And then it dried! All he had left were tufts where his fringe used to be, and an interview to go to.

Scissors are seriously dangerous weapons in the wrong hands. And my kids' teachers keep asking me to get them to practice - I hardly let my DD& near scissors, let alone my supremely dangerous DS5!

Sympathy Jenn. Don't be mad at yourself because she would have found a way, no matter what. Be angry at her, but try not to let it get out of proportion. My DD has found plenty of other things to annoy me with since then, and cutting hair is not even close to the worst!

Kerri.

I just recieved a phonecall from my mother saying that my 4 year old daughter is crying because she cut her own hair. I'm thinking to myself, ok, maybe its not so bad so I tell them to send a picture to my email. Her hair is butchered!!! Her bangs are cut all the way across down to the scalp and there is a huge chunk missing from the side of her head. It has taken her 4 years to get hair down to her shoulders and now I am gonna have to cut it atleast to her ears all the way around!!! My mother tells me that I am over reacting but I dont think I am. I dont see how this can be fixed by any hairdresser and it will take forever to grow back. I am scared that she will go to preschool and all of the kids will make fun of her about it and she gets upset so easily.

Man, is this ever familiar! Yes, even hairdressers kids do this! BOTH my kids, when they were little, cut their own hair with kid scissors. And NO I couldn't fix it even being a hairdresser!!!!! Sometimes these things aren't fixable, BUT like Lynn said its hair and it will grow back. And when your kids are teenagers like mine, you will laugh your butt off about it, even though its not funny now :/
If it makes you feel any better, my DD18 went to the nail salon the other day and had her eyebrows waxed with her friends, now mind you, I do this to her for free, and I have a wax machine here at home. Well we gotta be like our friends right? NOW she has like one thin line of eyebrows and looks like hell. Well well well aren't we intellegent??? I just shook my head and laughed. Then read her the riot act, nail techs aren't licensed to do wax, thats what takes food off our table I told her

But it could be worse, I once had a little boy come in the salon that got hold of his dad's electric razor and shaved OFF the back of his hair. ACK!

Hang in there!
Marlene

Down to the scalp. My mother had me get a pixie cut. With VERY fine, thin blonde hair it was not a cute pixie but it worked. I am sure I was made fun of but honestly I DO NOT REMEMBER! But I do remember I never cut my hair again!

Jana

Haha I can understand why you are mad but I must say I did a similar thing as a child only not to my own hair. I took those same scissors and cut one of my girl friend's bangs!! Hahah needless to say her mom wasn't so happy either...don't worry years from now you will look back and laugh and in the meantime - just remember she is 4 =)
*~* GLITTERY.HOMEMAKER *~*

I swear it must be "generational"..... excuses, excuses and more excuses. Yes.... "stuff does happen"..... but the common factor I've read in these postings is always the same.. EXCUSES. Own up to it people...YOU screwed up... NOT your child. But the child is the one that's getting all the repercussions here....yelled at....self esteem being obliterated, made fun of by others, INCLUDING MORE IMMATURE ADULTS....etc. etc. etc. All the while... these things could have been prevented by YOU.... the parents, the adults... the ones who are supposed to be RESPONSIBLE. A child of 3-4 years old should NOT have the OPPORTUNITY to do this. A child of 10-12, is quite another story. No... don't wrap them up in a cocoon to protect them, but the parents have to at some point accept the responsibility of these YOUNGGGGGGG kids. ANy time something goes wrong, or something happens to a kid, the parents instantly try to focus the blame somewhere where it doesn't belong. Like I said it's generational...you're never wrong... YOU didn't leave the scissors down and available to small hands....YOU weren't doing something else that could have waited.... YOU were engrossed in your current more important activity while thinking...."THEY'RE OK".... I'll get there in a minute. OWN UP TO YOUR MISTAKE and stop blaming it on the child. And... whoever it was that posted something about " a fitting punishment"...yes, you're right. BUT the punishment should be for the ADULT and this person should be required to take parenting classes. PUNISHMENT should be levied on the ones responsible....which is not a 4 year old CHILD. GET REAL parents... stop putting the blame on the children....YOU are the adults, YOU are the PARENTS, YOU are the ones responsible for THEIR CARE!

It only takes ONE SECOND for that child to be GONE.... INJURED... or DEAD! I know of one case where a mother thought.. "I'll lock the door in a second... and 2 minutes late the child was drowned in their family pool. I know of another case where a 3 yr old got scissors left down by a mother cutting coupons... and the child trying to please their mother came running to give the scissors to the Mommy yelling
" Here MOMMY.. for YOU"... and promptly fell on them and DIED later that day. Another where the child went OUT the door and was struck by a car while the parents were making dinner.... and another that fell out of a 2nd story window while left alone... etc. etc. etc. etc. WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO WAKE YOU PEOPLE UP? READ THE NEWSPAPERS>> LISTEN TO THE NEWS>>> IT HAPPENS EVERY SINGLE DAY!

When you ADULTS look at your dear sweet "hairless" CHILDREN....please don't cry over the lost "beauty" as you perceive it.... Cry over the fact that it could have been worse, and wasn't ... ONLY by the grace of GOD.... certainly not by your vigilance as parents! Hug your child, tell them they're beautiful and thank God they lived through YOUR mistake, ............THIS TIME!

Or your kid could cut her hair with a pair of nail clippers - not nail scissors - nail clippers like my almost 4 yo did. Of course, nail clippers are slow work so she only managed to mangle one portion of her head before I caught her. They are resourceful little buggers.

The original poster stated that it was with kids scissors, aka safety scissors, that this was done with. NOT adult scissors. Yes, they are safety scissors, and some of them say on the package that it only cuts paper, NOT hair. But guess what? Somehow my child managed to cut hair with it. Not much, but some. She was 7. Which is a bit old to be in that stage of "I didn't know any better" when I know she did. She was just looking for a bit of attention and mad that I wouldn't let her cut her long locks of golden curls (she didn't cut much. I took her to the salon in town and managed to give her a long layered cut, thus keeping her hair fairly long. Unfortunatly, most of the curls are gone).

My point is, safety scissors can be the culprit, not just mama's sewing shears. And while safety scissors can cut hair, you aren't going to fall and stab/kill yourself with them any more than other items, like a pencil or something.

And if a child REALLY wants something, they will get it. We have a cousin who kept her scissors on TOP of the fridge. She went to change the diaper of the other child and came back to find her 3 year old had gotten on top of the counter to reach the fridge and had cut off a good portion of her hair. I suggested next time she lock her scissors in the gun cabinet. LOL! I suppose though that it was totally the fault of the mom for having more than one child to look after. She should wait til one is grown before having another one, because a mom can't watch more than one child at one time. [snort!!!]

I echo Lynn. That lady has some issues and probably is a troller. Just to get a rise out of us. Seen them before around here. Or else she has nothing better to do but read the horrible statistics of the news world and blame mothers that took an eye off their sleeping child in order to get some sleep theirselves.

I've been on the computer for 10 minutes. I should make sure that all 4 of my children are still alive and haven't choked on a piece of pulp in their orange juice.

under my husbands supervision our four year old cut our three year olds hair tonight...each curl has been cut off along with her bangs GONE! Anyway reading all this has made me feel much better! Thank You

I don't have a hair cutting story (other than than my Mum had to cut a huge chunk of mine out because I stuck gum in it!) I wanted to say I am so sad to hear about your brother, Rizzo.

Sounds like you have great memories of him though, and that is a wonderful and precious thing.

Honey.

My DD4 just cut off about 3" of my DD2 hair. I am so sad.( She had such beautiful hair, down to shoulders already. She also hacked my plants in my sunroom to death. Is this just a preschooler craze?

As to the crazy mad g'mother poster, you're right - I didn't have an eye on them. And I don't 100% of the time. Who does?!? I was cleaning the kitchen and heard them playing in their room (or so I thought). How in the world could a person be with their kids every single minute of every single day?

She begged and begged to cut her own bangs--I used to do mine all the time before I cut all my hair off, now I actually have a stylist do it, woohoo. I said, it's not as easy as it looks. She said pleeeeeeeeze!!!!!1!

So I said fine, and straightened up the resulting crookedies. Her bangs are far, far north of her eyebrows. They're almost north of her hairline. But she's happy and proud so whatever, it's hair, it grows.

Lynn Siprelle, Editor

When my younger sister was about 7 she also BUTCHERED her hair all off! Now shes 15 and she just went to the hair shop and got a really fashionable mo-hawk style cut. I guess she's always had it in her. lol

I'm only 18 but I remember at her age it was a favorite past-time of mine to try and prove that I could cut my hair and make it look pretty. I failed miserably, completely destroying my bangs on family photo day (although there wasn't a much more that could make that picture any uglier). It's rather funny though, because, now I have plenty of practice with my bangs (I trim them regularly to keep them out of my eyes) and none with the rest of my head...

I remember when i was younger and my little brother would sneak away with the scissors and mangle his hair. Thankfully its not so bad with boys, you can shave their heads to straighten it out if u have to. I cant tell you how long my sister and i would laugh at his rediculous hair cut and my mother had always warned that one day it would happen to our kids and we wouldnt think it was so funny. Unfortunately today had to be that day. One of my 4 yr old twins got a hold of a pair of scissors while i was getting their lunches ready. When i walked back into the living room i saw her beautiful long blonde hair in ruins all over the carpet. My 1st reaction was to see if they were ok - no cuts, no blood. Then the shock of the hair hit me. Hopefully their old enough to have learned from this. When i called my mom to tell her she laughed out loud and said "told ya so"

I have read all of your comments on her about your own experiences with your children cutting their own hair,well today my daughter only 5 years old cut a huge chunk out of her bangs left the sides long now it looked like someone took a set of clippers and buzzed in the middle of her hair in the front.i couldnt help but be mad and believe me she knows now that when i say not to do something i mean it.I had to shave some of the bad haircut and make new bangs needless to say it dont look bad but it dont look good either.she cant even do a brush over so that tells you something.if anyone can tell me how long it takes for hair to grow back i would like to hear it.I given her vitamin e to help i know it helps me so im praying it will help her someone please help me i dont know what to do ....this aint the first time she has done this

Hair grows about 6" a year.

That means that it probably hasn't grown out yet, but madmommy has probably gotten used to seeing the kidlet this way.

I recommend telling the kid the following:

"If you insist on cutting your hair again, we will shave your head so you will have no more hair to cut."

And then following through with it.

It works. I know this because: It turns out that our youngest daughter looks GREAT with a pixie cut. Matches her face and her style

She hasn't attacked anything with scissors since.

I can totally identify with the original poster. My daughter is 17 now but when she was 6 she decided that she'd do something about the fact that I'd been saying for several days that I needed to take her to the hair salon to trim her bob.

Right before she started 1st grade she took her kindergarten scissors and cut a huge chunk on her left temple as close to the scalp as you can get with scissors. I think she realized she made a huge mistake because she ran up to me and said, "Mommy, mommy! I cut my hair." Then she just looked at me as I reacted. I asked her why she cut it and she told me that she was just trying to help so I didn't spend money at the "hair store".

I couldn't stay mad! I just hugged her and told her that next time she should ask me if it's okay to do something like that because now we have to go anyway to "hair store" anyway.

She ended up getting a super short pixie cut to match the section that she cut, even then there was still a noticeably buzzed-looking section and even though I tried to dress her in pink as much as possible people still called her a little boy. She would get sad and learned her lesson for a long time...

That is until a few months ago when she decided she wanted a faux-hawk right before a big concert she'd been looking forward to for months and just a month before her senior year of high school. I tried to talk her out of it but no-go.

She went to the hair salon with my sister (big mistake to go without me) and the stylist buzzed the sides of her hair!

My daughter cried so much and I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying, "I told you so!"

After nearly a month and a half of wearing a hat EVERY TIME she went out, her hair was finally long enough to try a pixie cut. We went to an expensive salon just to be safe and he evened out her hair. Now, she still feels a bit sad that her hair is so short but it looks a lot better.

I know I'll look back on this with fond memories just like her 1st grade self styling experience. It's all part of growing up, just go with the flow and make even the mistakes into moments you'll cherish when they're grown.

Good luck!

Raquel