Had a kid's first haircut turn into a 45 minute standoff over the clippers

The little guy was terrified of the sound, and calming him down took forever. Anyone got a good trick for that besides the usual toy distraction?

4 comments

4 Comments

the_jennifer1mo ago

Honestly, I think all that prep work is overkill and just builds up the event too much. Sometimes you just have to power through the scary thing, not spend weeks making a whole project out of it. Kids pick up on our anxiety, so all that focus on the clippers just tells them there's something to be scared of. A quick, firm haircut, even with tears, gets it done and shows them it's not a big deal. They forget about it ten minutes later when you hand them a cookie.

emmaclark4d agoMost Upvoted

Hold up, you say a quick cut with tears shows them it's not a big deal. But doesn't the crying mean it IS a big deal to them in that moment? My nephew got a buzz cut like that and he was scared of the bathroom for a month because that's where it happened. How do you know they're just forgetting with the cookie and not learning to hide being scared?

the_harper1mo ago

Honestly, the toy thing never worked for us either. What finally clicked was making it a game WEIRDLY early. Like, weeks before the actual cut, we'd play "barber shop" with a turned-off electric toothbrush. Let him hold it, feel the buzz on his arm, get used to the vibration. The actual clippers were still scary, but way less of a total shock. It's about taking the mystery out of the machine.

ellis.faith1mo ago

Yeah, that's way smarter than what we did. We tried the toy clippers too and my kid just used them to "mow" the dog. So then we had a terrified dog AND a kid who thought haircuts meant chasing the poodle. Your way makes way more sense, taking the scary part out of it slowly. I'm filing that away for the next kid, because my current plan of just letting it grow into a mop is not winning any parenting awards.