I once again attempted a haircut tonight with Brycen...and eventually I was successful but not without feeling like I am torturing him and myself in the process! Brycen gets so scared, trembles, shivers, and yells anytime someone wants to cut his hair. Due to his extreme fear of hair dryers, razors and unfamiliar places, we only take him to the salon every 6 months or so for a touch up, but in the meantime, it's up to me to trim him up the best I can. In the salon, we have to hold him down on our lap to get it done while he screams, throws things, and hits the entire time.
I dread these times as I feel like the worst mother in the world when I see his response to seeing the scissors, comb, and a towel. I've tried to wet it down with a water bottle, but that also scares him so I resort to getting it slightly damp and just working as fast as I can despite his constant moving, crying, and yelling. Every time the comb touches his hair or he feels the scissors graze his skin while cutting the hair on the back of his neck, he trembles like he is in pain.
I use lots of bribery (sucker, train movie) and tonight I promised him a trip to the store to see Daddy if he could do it. That calmed him for about 5 seconds and then it was back to the yelling and crying again. I wish I knew what he was feeling and why cutting the hair is so traumatic for him. He typically doesn't care when we need to scrub it in the bath, comb it after baths, or when we smooth down his hair to calm him at bedtime...so why does it all of a sudden bother him when we are touching his hair to cut it? I think this will always puzzle me...but in the meantime, he needs to have his haircut so I guess I get to feel like a bad Mom every couple months and suffer through the ordeal with him. I can only hope it will get better....or at least not get any worse than it already is to him!
Just in case you are wondering, I did follow through with the trip to the store to see Daddy too! I'm not sure if he remembered I promised that, but I wasn't going to take the chance at another tantrum following the haircut if I didn't follow through!
"When one door of happiness closes, another opens;
but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."
Helen Keller
Friday, November 20, 2009
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Autism and Our Family
"Autism"----It's one word that can change the life of a child and family in so many ways. Autism Spectrum Disorders are being diagnosed at a rate of 1 in 68 children currently. If you do not already know someone that has been diagnosed, the statistics say it won't be long before you do.
Our son developed typically until around the time he turned 2 years old. We heard words...we saw him play with other kids...we watched as he played with his toys appropriately...we made eye contact with him...overall we understood his wants and needs. In a matter of a few months, that was all taken away from him. He began lining up toys, lost all of his words and signs except for one word "ball", ignored other kids, could not sleep through the night, lost eye contact and the ability to follow directions, and he had no way of letting us know what he wanted or how he felt. It was heartbreaking to see something happening to our child that we couldn't stop!
Brycen began receiving home therapy 1-2 times per month for about 6 months before we realized it wasn't just developmental delays. We knew it was Autism...we just didn't want to say it outloud to anyone. He was officially diagnosed with Autism (classic form and regressive), as well as Mental Retardation in August 2009 by the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.
We continue to learn as we make our way through this journey with Brycen and we will continue to share this journey with you on this blog! The blog has been a great therapy for us to be able to vent our frustrations and struggles with accepting that we have a child with special needs, while sharing how blessed we are to have a child teach us what life truly means. It has also been a great way to inform others of his progress and changes over the last couple of years.
Thank you for your support of Brycen and our family! We hope you are able to learn something through this blog no matter if you are a parent of a child with special needs or a neurotypical child, a teacher or therapist, a family member, or just someone that is interested in the journey that a family goes on as they learn their child is battling a life-long disorder.
Our son developed typically until around the time he turned 2 years old. We heard words...we saw him play with other kids...we watched as he played with his toys appropriately...we made eye contact with him...overall we understood his wants and needs. In a matter of a few months, that was all taken away from him. He began lining up toys, lost all of his words and signs except for one word "ball", ignored other kids, could not sleep through the night, lost eye contact and the ability to follow directions, and he had no way of letting us know what he wanted or how he felt. It was heartbreaking to see something happening to our child that we couldn't stop!
Brycen began receiving home therapy 1-2 times per month for about 6 months before we realized it wasn't just developmental delays. We knew it was Autism...we just didn't want to say it outloud to anyone. He was officially diagnosed with Autism (classic form and regressive), as well as Mental Retardation in August 2009 by the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.
We continue to learn as we make our way through this journey with Brycen and we will continue to share this journey with you on this blog! The blog has been a great therapy for us to be able to vent our frustrations and struggles with accepting that we have a child with special needs, while sharing how blessed we are to have a child teach us what life truly means. It has also been a great way to inform others of his progress and changes over the last couple of years.
Thank you for your support of Brycen and our family! We hope you are able to learn something through this blog no matter if you are a parent of a child with special needs or a neurotypical child, a teacher or therapist, a family member, or just someone that is interested in the journey that a family goes on as they learn their child is battling a life-long disorder.
Poor Brycen. And poor Mommy. My boys were both like that for a very long time too, Kurt worse than Aiden. I remember it taking both of us to hold him down while he got his hair cut. No bribes helped either. Aiden has only recently started sitting there being good. It's helped going to the same person every time and being able to watch his brother and sister and sometimes Grandma get theirs cut too. So it could be the same sort of thing with Brycen. He maybe just hasn't outgrown it yet and doesn't know how to articulate to you what bothers him about it.
ReplyDeleteI hope it will get easier as he gets older or you can find something that will sooth him through the ordeal.
ReplyDeleteTry cutting his hair while giving him a bath.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback! I'm glad there are other people out there that know how I feel to have to hold your child down for a simple haircut. When you hold your child while they are getting a shot, it is for a matter of seconds, whereas a haircut is minutes and it can be very tiring.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the idea of the bathtub! He does enjoy his baths, so I also thought this was a good idea to do it while he is distracted with the water and his toys...so I did try it a couple months ago and unfortunately it was the same result as every other time for the past year. I determined that it would not be safe to do it then with water and a slippery surface if he was still going to fight it. I also was worried that he would start to associate taking a bath with getting a haircut, so I immediately stopped as the haircut battle is enough every couple months. I couldn't imagine battling bath time multiple times a week too!
We've also tried cutting when he was sleeping, but of course he is not a heavy sleeper so he immediately wakes up:(
We'll just keep trying different avenues and hopefully get some idea of how to counter-act his sensory issues more!