Are you compromising your children’s hair? Have you resulted to a chemical to make styling easier?

As a hairstylist, it has always bothered me immensely to see children, as young as age 2, with a relaxer in their head!!!! My immediate reaction was anger and my verbal response was LAZY MOM!!!! I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and even more so, the hairstylists that were performing the service troubled me deeply. Although, in partial defense of most hairstylists, I realized that most of these children’s mother had already started them on relaxers using the “kiddie perms” they purchased at their local beauty supply store. I think that most mother’s don’t realize the physical damage their causing, which I’ll discuss later, but even more deep rooted is the emotional and psychological damage they cause! When a mother finds displeasure in the process of shampooing, combing, and styling their child’s hair, it immediately births in the mind and heart of that young girl a sense of self-hatred and of being less than. What you are literally telling her is her hair is “bad”, “hard”, “ugly”, and it would be better and she would be much more beautiful if she had straight hair that was more “manageable”! And so the deterioration of her self-worth begins and even worse at the mouth of her own mother!! This is detrimental to her self-esteem, and so for a lifetime she is obsessed with her hair, trying to fit the mold of something God never created her to be. It is not my intention to make mother’s feel bad about the decisions they have made, but to educate you on the devastating effects of this choice that “seems” to make your life easier temporarily. In actuality, what you end up with is a child who eventually has broken, damaged hair, with the growth stunted, because of the chemical process done to their young bodies. If a child has not reached puberty, which in most cases, is by age 13, they should not be doing any chemical processing, including color. Since they are still developing, this does major damage to their follicles, and they never get to see the full potential their hair could have had had it never been relaxed. I hope this will inspire mothers everywhere to transition their little girls back to natural if they have already given them relaxers and to encourage moms who are debating, to keep doing what they’re doing. Please consult an educated stylist to assist you on your journey with your little one.