I had my hair cut yesterday for the first time in 5 months. The last time I had it done was a couple of days before my husband was made redundant. He got the call that his employers had gone belly up whilst we were in the UK and this meant he was out of work for the 2 months we were there. I am the only one in this family who actually pays for her hair to be cut so I simply haven't had it done whilst we get back on financial track. The reason no-one else pays for a hair cut in this family is that my husband is from Yorkshire. And my boys have ASD.
Ask the mother of a child with ASD what her preferred method of torture would be if the choice was taking her child for a hair cut or having a hot poker pressed to her skin, she would choose the hot poker any day! I have had years of torture as the only way to get them to have a haircut was to do it myself. This usually involved me doing a couple of snips and then boom! Long Legs used to run around the house screaming because the hair felt like cut glass on the skin. The Short One is fidgets and squirms and jumps up when
he's had enough regardless of whether he looks like one of the 3
Stooges.
I took Long Legs to a hairdressers when he was a toddler once, any
attempts after that were disastrous. So I took to snipping his hair
myself when he was asleep (as I suspect a lot of us have done at some point) just so he could see out of his eyes. The Short One started off quite promisingly and I was able to take him to the hairdressers but he has got worse over the years. He used to quite
happily sit and have his hair cut by a hairdresser, by sit happily I
mean not fidget and squirm every time a pair of scissors went near him.
As I was doing his brother's hair, eventually when we moved states and I lost my hairdresser, I just started to do his too.
Silly me.
I thought we'd had a breakthrough with Long Legs a few years ago when he had his hair cut in the UK. I don't know whether it was the fact the hairdresser was completely camp and over the top that made him sit still or that we'd persuaded him to have his hair cut by the same hairdresser who cut his equally hair cutting phobic cousin. He had, at this point in his life, just started brushing therapy with the OT. Now I must point out, the
brushing technique is NOT an evidence based practice. That just means,
not enough kids with ASD have shown enough improvement after this
therapy. For us, however, it most definitely had a significant effect
and Long Leg's sat still in the hairdresser's chair. Back to Australia and without a hairdresser I was back to my snipping and although Long Legs was better with me, it was still pretty painful.
In the end it got so bad with both of them I just said, no more, I am never doing this again! They screamed, I screamed, hair went everywhere and it was, well torture. As Long Legs entered senior year at primary school, the rules about length of hair became very strict and after a warning from the teacher that he would have to wear it in a pony-tail, I decided to bite the bullet and took him straight to a new barbers that had opened. This then involved Long Legs sitting there refusing to get in the chair for a very long time whilst my face was trying to convey to the hairdresser and the other people in the room that he wasn't being a brat. Eventually he got in the chair after the addition of a little bribery, I mean positive reinforcement. I then took the Short One a few days later, my nerves couldn't cope with both on the same day, and he obliged the first time. However, the second time we went back, Long Legs sat there good as gold but the Short One had such a bad experience with a different hairdresser, who seemed to think when I said 'no clippers' I meant, 'please keep bringing the clippers out and put them near my son's ears, even if I shake my head furiously at you and say no', that he has pretty much refused haircuts since.
When we were in the UK before Xmas, Grandma's hairdresser came to give them both a haircut and they did pretty well, but the Short One moaned like buggery that he didn't want it done. Before we returned to Australia and back to school, we couldn't get Grandma's hairdresser to come back and do them again so Daddy took them to Grandad's barber. Long Legs turned up later looking like he'd had a hair cut, the Short One, not so much. That's because he'd refused to get in the chair! Alas, the haircut Long Legs had had, was actually short lived.
He started high school this year which has a strict uniform policy and a stipulation in the school guide that hair is not to be extreme or dyed. So he had a much shorter cut than usual but it turned out to be too long. He returned home the day of his formal school photo to inform me that they refused to take his photo because the school rules (not actually stated in their prospectus!) are no hair over the ears and it is not allowed to be touching the eye-brows. I spat the dummy for a while and then sucked it up. I did after all choose a high school for Long Legs which had strict rules and boundaries because this is what suits him best. So then I panicked at the thought of how do I get his hair cut around his ears and got ready to do battle.
Thankfully, a rather interesting looking footballer came to my rescue who goes by the name of Namar. Now, if like me you have no idea who this dude is, you can be assured that as a footballer, his hair is not short back and sides. Long Legs agreed to a hair cut as long as I made him look like Mr Namar. I pointed out that I didn't quite think Long Legs would get away with the dyed blonde spikey fringe or the no.1 clip up the back. So we compromised on it being quite short up the back (and around the ears!) and that I would give him a long enough fringe for the flickability factor. Success! Child happy, he actually loved the feel of the short hair. School happy, photo taken.
So term 2 has just started and I said to Long Legs, better have a quick tidy up, that fringe is at least 1mm over the eyebrows! As much as he tried to tell me he could just sweep it to the sides, I convinced him, a quick snip was all that was needed. I suggested the previous time that it would be helpful if I could use Daddy's clippers and he wasn't completely averse to the idea but I chickened out and stuck with the trusty comb and scissors. This time, having just done Daddy's wig, I suggested them again and lo and behold he did not do a Usain on me as the buzz of the clippers started up but sat there and let me clip. I clipped his hair. Around his ears we went without a flinch and then he requested a 'V' shape to be cut into the back of his head which I diligently did for him of course. It made my life sooooo much easier and I can at least think about his next hair cut without getting night terrors. He has made so many advancements lately that I think he must be on a roll. I wonder what else I can introduce? The Short One will, however, be getting a quick clip in his sleep over the next few days...
Til tomorrow x
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