Navigating a child's drastic appearance request
Parents struggle with whether to allow their young child to make drastic, unconventional changes to their appearance, balancing the child's bodily autonomy against fears of social judgment or the child's subsequent regret.
What people tried
3 itemsEvery workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Cutting the hair incrementally shorter in phases to see if they are satisfied with a less extreme change.Did this help you?
- 2Compromising with a partial cut like an undercut or a pixie cut.Did this help you?
- 3Using a bald cap so the child can see what it looks like before committing.Did this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I personally don't want her to have no hair but I think it's more about others judgement and looks - which even I realise are terrible reasons. Would others let their 3 year old daughter have a shaven hair cut?!”source ↗
“My three year old wanted her hair short “like daddy”. We went to the hairdressers and got a shorter style and once she saw that it was enough for her.”source ↗
“I gave mine a pixie cut around that age. She wanted a haircut like Daddy! She did not want the same haircut again afterwards. I was not willing to just shave her head, but a pixie cut was a pretty easy compromise and she was very happy with it.”source ↗
Where this came up
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