Fear of Change

I know that R has a hard time with transitions and with change. It has been a source of tantrums and defiance and lots of tears and frustration. She gets anxious before the start of every school year because she knows that she will be in a new situation with new kids, new teacher and new expectations. Most mornings are rough because she becomes very tense when she has to transition from home to school. She is fine once she gets on the bus and is on her way but the tension is thick here in the morning when it comes time to get ready.

I tend to think of R as more of a tomboy than a girly-girl - although she does have an attraction to sparkly things - and I think she would tend to describe herself the same way. In fact, she recently told me that she likes J and S at school because they are "not too girly." However, she also seems to have a strong dislike of being thought of as too 'boyish' and she seems to think that long hair = girl whereas shorter hair = boy. This is her perception even though we know plenty of males here in the hippy, happy valley who wear their hair long and an equally large number of females who have hair cropped very short and 'boyish' - her teacher included. So, she is very attached to her long locks, as evidenced in her 2nd grade picture:



So, the combination of her perception of self, of boyness vs. girlness, and her difficulty with change means that haircuts are to be loathed as evil and unnecessary torture the likes of which are only rivaled by early bedtimes, having to share with ones sisters, and the foolish and utterly futile concept of "clean up time."

For the last month or so I have been having battles with R about her hair. As it is has gotten longer it has become more and more a magnet for snarls, knots and wickedly clumped 'bed head'. Any suggestion of a haircut sends her into fit of screaming and wailing about injustices if life, yet trying to get her hair brushed in the morning is likely bring on tantrums of epic proportions and ear-splitting shrieks that can be heard in the next county. After a few days of this behavior and having my patience worn to a thin line, I would argue that the only way to avoid the pain of removing the snarls would be to cut it shorter. She would heed this warning for a short while and I'd have a couple of days of reprieve from the caterwauling, but inevitably it came back once the fear of actually getting her hair cut was but a distant memory.

I finally decided to stop threatening to cut her hair yesterday and told her that today was THE DAY. I was going to put a stop to the insanity and cut her hair in the hopes of making both our lives a bit easier. She would be in a lot less pain from the daily brushing and my ears could stop rupturing every time that task was undertaken. She wailed and carried on about how she hated short hair and she even pulled out her "no friend card" which is getting pretty darn old. I have a theory about this "no friend card" thing. At first I took her complaints very seriously when the issue came up last year. She would often complain that she had no friends at school and everyone ignored her. My concern was such that I think she enjoyed the attention. The teachers have not reported the same issues from their perspective and feel that R is well-liked in school. And I have found over the last while that the complaints about "no friends" seems to coincide with R's need for attention...or love...or...something. She gets my attention with this complaint and I've begun to wonder if it is a ploy...a way to shift the subject and the attention directly onto herself. So, when she was upset at the thought of having her haircut she decided to bring up the friend issue again and told me that her friends won't like her with short hair and that even now they ignore her and won't play with her. I decided not to buy into it and cut the conversation short. I had not heard this complaint for many, many weeks and the timing just seemed to reinforce my theory (not to mention the mixed-up argument she was using whereby her friends ignored her now with long hair and would surely hate her and refuse to play with her if she had short hair). I've worked hard since the beginning of school to invite her classmates over to play so that she could get to know then in a one on one situation - it seemed to be working well and she was no longer complaining about being friendless...until she felt cornered yesterday.

After breakfast, I got her straight into the tub and washed her hair. I let her play for a bit and then told her that it was time to get out and get dressed and to meet me in the kitchen for her haircut. She was none too pleased and refused to comply at first. Then I told her that she had a choice. I could cut her hair or I could bring her to my hairdresser and he would do the dirty deed. She decided for some reason that I was the better choice. I guess it's easier to hate your own mother for 'ruining your life' - an easier target because you live with her and can spend more time making her realize how really horrible she is. Perfect fodder for future therapy sessions.

Whenever my hairdresser, David, has cut R's hair in the past she has sat calmly and demurely without uttering a single sound and let's him do his thing. I am never so lucky. I get the complains about the chair being too hard, the task at hand taking too long, and the itchy hairs that land on her face or neck. Maybe she likes the fact that she can keep herself entertained more easily when I cut her hair because she is never too shy with me to share her pain and grief. I feel so special.

After I finished cutting I made her wait until I dried it with the blow dryer before I let her take a look in the mirror. On her way to the mirror A walked by and told R how much she like it and that R looked "cute" (which was the exact wrong thing to say according to R who equates "cute" with "babies" and she certainly was not wanting to look babyish or at all younger than her 7 and 3/4 years!). R went to look in the mirror and she was pleasantly surprised by her new 'do! And I was even more pleasantly surprised that I was not going to have to deal with an epic meltdown for ruining her life and her hair. I think she was more afraid of the change that a haircut would bring than of the haircut itself. Once all was said and done and the transition from long locks was complete she could look at it on the other side and realize that the change wasn't so bad after all. In fact, she kind of liked it and decided it maybe even made her look a little bit older!

See and decide for yourself...presenting the more mature Rebecca in her new (and hopefully less tangly) 'do!