My Toddler Gets Hysterical When He Has His Hair Cut. What Can I Do?
There is a Jewish answer to the question: "My toddler gets hysterical when he has his hair cut. What can I do?" The answer is another question: "If your child gets hysterical when he has his haircut, why are you persisting in trying to get his hair cut?"
Unless it is an absolute emergency, why traumatize a child? The only situation when it is appropriate to restrain a child while he or she is terrified, is for vaccines or other medical reason.
Before we continue, let me say that the question "What can I do?" is wrong. Here is the right question: "When is the right age for my baby's first haircut?"
The quick answer: When your child is no longer afraid to get one.
My sons didn't have their first haircut until they were three or four. No fuss, no crying, no trauma, no drama, no restraint, no child abuse.
The long answer: Unless your child is stepping and then tripping on his hair, why bother cutting it at all? Many mothers cut their son's hair because they are annoyed that people mistake their boy for a girl. But so what? Other moms do it for no reason at all. There are mothers who even cut their child's hair every single month, no matter how much the child is tortured or traumatized.
But, you may ask, what about hair that gets in the way of your child's vision? Well, just snip off the offending strands while your child is asleep. It's not brain surgery.
Some mothers only cut their child's hair so that they can style it in a manner that impresses their female friends (Oh isn't he cute with that mohawk haircut?).
For these mothers, the child is merely fodder to bolster their own distorted notion of self-esteem or to satisfy the sick urges prompted by their Münchausen syndrome by proxy disease. It is not the child's needs that are important, it's whatever makes the mother look good to those around her. Mothers who cannot wow their friends with a fancy car or expensive jewelry use their children as just another plaything to make her look successful or happy or a good mother.
A mother's job is difficult enough without making it unbearable. Why make your child wail in terror? This is why some mothers have postpartum depression, they lack sleep and they worry about their ability as a mother. They lack sleep because their child wakes up in the middle of the night from terror-dreams. The child wakes in the middle of the night because the mother has unknowingly abused her child.
The mother rightly worries about her ability as a mother because her child is always crying. Want to have a peaceful and restful motherhood? Stop abusing your child. The first step in solving the problem is admitting that you, not the child, is the problem.
