HAIR TRAUMA IN CHILDHOOD: CAUSES AND WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP YOUR CHILD

After a visit to the hairdresser’s, you should feel like you are worth a million dollars, whether you are an adult or a child. Your hair is your crowning glory, and when you’re spending good money on it, the last thing you expect (or want) is a disaster on your hands or a hair experience so traumatic it scars you for life.

But the thing is that a trip to the hairdressers does go wrong from time to time for us all. Sometimes the disaster is something relatively small such as not loving the highlights in your hair. And sometimes it is something major, like your hair being yanked from the root or losing patches of hair after an appointment.

Let’s look at how this can affect young children

There are hundreds of thousands of stories connected to people’s trauma with their hair, and quite a large proportion of these traumas start young. The thing is that those early experiences that you have with your hair really shape your ideas about your hair, and these experiences often follow you into adulthood.

Hair is very important, particularly more so to women, and if you are a woman with a harder/coilier texture of hair, you’ve probably had to become your own advocate. You probably have had to choose your own (and sometimes become your own) hairstylist. You’ve learnt how to stay in the driver’s seat of your styling, treatments, and how your hair is handled.

However, harder texture or not, we’ve all quite unfortunately had our more than fair share of bad hair experiences.

Three signs that you are suffering from hair trauma

It is actually possible to be suffering from hair trauma and not know it, except you sit down and ask yourself some deep questions. Here are some signs that you’ve had a bad hair experience and have internalised the trauma:

You are afraid to go into salons: There are people who find it difficult to get themselves into a hair stylist’s chair, and who would rather handle their own hair themselves. Not because they cannot afford it financially, but because they are petrified of what will happen to their hair at the hair stylist’s hands. These kinds of people only visit the hair stylist when they absolutely cannot help it. If you are someone who does this, perhaps you are suffering from hair trauma.

You wear protective hairstyles for a long time: Protective hairstyles are great for helping your hair rest and take a breather from constant manipulation. But if you find yourself wearing the same protective hairstyle for longer than is recommended, something might be afoot. I once had a client sit in my chair who had had her weave on sewn in for eight months. It took five hours to sort through her matted hair and detangle the hair properly. Upon closer inquiry, I found that she had had terrible experiences with her hair as a child and often wore protective hairstyles for long periods so that she wouldn’t have anyone touching her hair. If you find yourself wearing protective hairstyles for months and months on end even though you know it is unhealthy, something might be wrong somewhere.

You are afraid to get your hair trimmed: This is often an indication that you have had a terrible hair cut/hair trim in the past. Perhaps the hair stylist cut more than he/she should have. Perhaps you were left with bald spots. Perhaps the length you worked so hard to achieve after four years was instantly and mistakenly loped off by a hairstylist’s pair of scissors.

What causes these traumas?

Aggression: Perhaps your hair was not treated with gentleness in the past. For example, most hair stylists handle natural hair with aggression, often braiding too tight or combing too hard. If you have roots that are coarse, dry, and difficult to comb, and often arrived at the stylists’ with your roots matted and tangled and difficult to work with, the hair stylists probably took out their frustration on your hair by tearing through and combing the coarse roots aggressively with a fine tooth comb. Sounds excruciating, right? A compassionate and educated stylist would/should have applied a leave-in conditioner on the hair and advised to do the same at home, but this is not always the case.

Uneducated hairstylists: Not every hairstylist is educated about all hair types, failing to understand that there is a specific way to handle specific types of hair. Unfortunately, not all uneducated stylists are humble enough to be educated by their client. There are cases of hairstylists who didn’t want to work with coconut-scented hair or those who chide the customer for applying too much oil to the hair instead of finding out why. There are ignorant stylists who set children back on their healthy hair journey by dry combing and breaking off all the hair you guys worked hard to retain or braiding the hair so tight that the end result is traction alopecia.

Texturism: There is this subconscious idea that the media perpetrates. We are told time and time again that only well-defined or loose curls are beautiful, and this manifests itself in the littlest of ways in the natural hair community. You see this when women and children with 4C hair are charged above average prices for hairstyles. You see this when salons require women to show up for appointments with their hair already straightened. You see this when the stylist who is supposed to take good care of your hair calls it is tough and difficult. Unfortunately, texturism damages emotions, particularly for little girls with tighter curls.

In-between hair: Not all parents can afford to get their kids to hairstylists, so the primary provider of hair care for young children is the parents. If your child has the same hair texture as you, this is not a problem but where the child has a different hair texture and the parent does not educate him/herself on their child’s hair texture, they are likely to treat this hair just like theirs, often with traumatic effects. This is particularly true about in-between hair. Most children born to two parents of different ethnicities have hair that is neither peculiar to any race but is in a category all its own. If a parent treats this hair just like his/her own, the child’s hair becomes unhealthy as a result, resulting in brittleness, greasiness, hair loss or any other form of hair trauma.

Not having a voice as a child: As children, we were never really listened to, and our guardians often took actions on our behalf that they thought were best for us. They chose our schools, our first friends, and the salons where we had our hair done, even if we didn’t like the hair stylist, even when we didn’t like how hard they gripped our hair. For children who were repeatedly taken to the same hair salon where they experienced pain again and again, the trauma often follows them right into adulthood.

Break the cycle

Perhaps you were traumatised as a young child because of your hair and you still retain some of those wounds. Now is the time to break the cycle, and the first way to do this is to teach your child to love their hair and become their own advocate.

Here is how you can help to break the cycle:

Understand your child’s hair texture: The first place to start is to know your child’s hair texture. This will save you plenty of money and time, and help you become a better advocate for them. This is because not all hair products should be used for your child’s hair because there is no hair product that fits all hair types. For example, people with 1-3B hair texture are not advised to use thick oils and creams because these may be too heavy and weigh down the hair. Meanwhile, people with 3C-4C hair are advised to avoid dime sized oils and spritzers because they’re too light and may make the hair dry and brittle. Understanding your child’s hair texture is where to start from.

If your child has 4C hair, forget that dime size amount rule: Pick up a hair product container, and you will most likely be advised to only use a dime size amount of that product, but that dime size amount can only go so far with 4C hair. 4C hair is thick and full and needs an immense amount of moisture. So, don’t be scared of the oil or that product. Use it generously. When most parents complain about their children’s hair, the root cause is usually dryness. So, use products generously so that your child’s hair is properly moisturized, easier to detangle and style, thereby causing less hair trauma.

Go for protective styles: While wearing their hair loose is beautiful, protective styles are also a great option for children if you want to avoid constant salon visits. So go ahead, have your child’s hair put up in protective styles once in a while. It gives the hair a chance to rest and adds length to the hair.

Be careful with straighteners and flat irons: It is sometimes tempting to break out the flat iron and straightener but it is advised that you don’t do this when you child is still very young. At that point, the hair is still growing and heat can be damaging.

In conclusion

If you are an adult who has suffered trauma from hairstyling in the past, I am sure that you know by now that time heals most wounds.

If it’s your child or a younger person who’s just gone through hair trauma, be there. Listen. And then offer practical help. The child often knows what is best for their hair in terms of how it is handled, and it is important you let this voice shine.

And if your child hasn’t yet suffered hair trauma, you want to make sure that they don’t.

No more hair traumas.