While speaking with one of my clients the other day, I realized I was yet again in this wonderful life of mine, 
LEARNING SOMETHING NEW. Not having children of my own, I learned the challenges mothers and fathers all over the world have with the varying differences their child’s hair may have from their own when it comes to everyday maintenance and care. So I thought that I would try to do something about that with my blog. For I am only here to serve YOU. So here goes. If I leave a type of hair out, or a problem you are having is unique to those listed, please leave a comment or click the CONTACT ME tab above for ways to reach me.
Here are a few tips to get you started to a life of less time fighting with your children with anything from morning hair to the most rebellious of tangles. 
- If your child’s hair is hard for you to manage, try taking your little one to a salon and getting a hair assessment, and maybe a real professional haircut. Once a year is enough, think of it as a birthday tradition.
Using good products is key and necessary. There is a trick though. Because of the youthfulness and integrity of your childs’ hair, you don’t have to use the products at full strength. Use diluted expensive shampoos and conditioners. I recommend using something available at one of your local ULTA stores. It your child’s hair is grown up enough to cause problems it is grown up enough to use shampoo that addresses specific issues. Take it and make it 1/2 and 1/2 with water and shake before each use, shampoo as usual. As for the conditioner, take a spray bottle and depending on the level of conditioning needed, put 1 tsp. for each ounce of water.
Common Sense Tips
95% or more of the articles and information found online about hair and grooming relate primarily to adults and their styles. And even though there are many products on the market that are designed for kids, they are literally a tiny fraction of a multi-billion-dollar industry. However, selecting haircuts and styles for kids generally requires some pretty specific considerations. As many parents know, sometimes the biggest challenge of any day is dealing with the child’s hair.
To address these issues, let’s discuss some of the common problems (and their solutions) with choosing cuts and styles for your kids. Now, for the sake of simplicity, we’re going to set a cut-off age for the topics here at about 10 years old. When kids reach 11 years and up, they generally want more input into their hair. Depending on your parenting style and feelings on their choices, this may or may not be a big deal, but that’s something best addressed on a case-by-case basis. That said, let’s begin:
Growing up with many cousins and their nieces and nephews of varying ages, it was interesting to see how different parents (even from similar backgrounds) approached the subject of kids’ hair. My friend kept her sons’ hair as long as possible – in shag cuts (when the hair was curly) or mullets while they were under the age of five, but as soon as they started school, they were taken to the barber shop and given buzz cuts. However, my neighbor,, who had girls, followed similar attitudes and was prone to keep her little girl’s hair uncut – without so much as a trim – which she claimed was meant to keep the hair as curly as possible – until the child was 8 (and could actually brush her own hair properly) at which point she promptly took her and got it cut into a pixie cut.
Neither of these choices in the early years was based on pre-conceived ideas about gender, but rather a wish to keep what she considered to be “great” features. All of my neighbor’s children had beautiful hair – one was even a curly carrot top, and the primary concern was keeping what she thought of as adorable blonde curls on her cherub-cheeked little girl. However, as the kids got older, more independently active, and their schedules increased, the constant hair care routine became a hassle. The problem most often complained of in both families was that getting the kids ready to go anywhere took a great deal of time and effort, since the cuts selected for the kids required a LOT of styling time, and at young ages, this was not fun for the parents or kids. As a result, by the time the kids would be able to help care for their hair, it was cut short.
Parents should always keep in mind that at certain ages – typically from toddler to kindergarten – as kids get more active in their play and expand their mobility – they’re often going to have added styling needs. The beautiful two-year-old with the head full of ringlets may turn into a screaming 4-year-old after an afternoon of playing in the yard
and a nap when you have to tame the Medusa’s nest that her hair has become. Similarly, the little boy whose bowl-cut is adorable and easy to care for at two and three, becomes a headache to keep looking neat when he’s constantly digging in the dirt, crawling through bushes or climbing in the garden.
The key is to support realistic expectations of the effort to care for your children’s hair while they’re small. At the toddling age, consider going for shorter cuts and styles that are easy to keep up. If your little boy has really thick, lush hair, keep it cropped short while he’s at the age where he’s into everything but you still have to wipe his behind for him. And when your little girl runs from you every time she sees a brush in your hand and you have to wrestle with the hair to untangle and tame it again, maybe cutting it shorter would help make it easier to manage. (At the very least, consider styles like braids and twists as staples if you just can’t agree to cutting the hair.)
As the parent, you, of course, have every right to decide how your child’s hair will be cut and kept. I just urge you to think about options that you may not have considered. If the parents can’t decide on the issue of how to cut or keep the child’s hair, let the parent who advocates the higher-maintenance option take responsibility for keeping the hair groomed. Either the parent will come to realize the difficulty, or the child’s hair will be groomed by the person who wants a specific look. Either way, the hairstyle problem will be resolved.
Gender Concepts & Kids’ Hair
With infants, the visibility of the hair is often a perennial concern. Even with little boy babies, the parents are most pleased when the child has a lush head of hair. And when a little girl baby is born, it’s not long before the parents are desperate for enough hair growth to be able to put in some adornment to signify that the child is, in fact, a girl. The situation doesn’t change as the child gets older, either. From birth through toddling age, many parents want their little boys to look like “little men” and their little girls to be “girly”. Even among the most liberal-minded people I know, these gender concepts prevail.
When gender concepts come into play, they often result in low-maintenance, easy-to-style looks for boys (if any styling at all is needed), but girls are often kept with hair as long as it will grow, which requires much more care, and needs a lot of attention to keep healthy. This seems great with little boys, and bad with little girls, but not all little boys should have a super-short cut, and not all little girls are suited to long hair. This doesn’t even consider the needs of children with coarse or very curly hair or those with whorls, hair streams and cowlicks. Children of different ethnicities will have their own, specific hair needs, too.
Different Hair Types
FINE hair is not uncommon among small children, especially those who were born with primarily vellus hair on the scalp. Fine hair, in and of its self, presents no real problems with hair care for kids. (At really young ages, the shampoo and bath used is extremely gentle anyway.) Cutting the hair, though can present issues, particularly combined with other features of the hair.
FINE & STRAIGHT hair needs to be cut in more blunt styles. Not only will layering the hair make it look thin and wispy, but it will make it easier to become frizzy and unkempt during normal toddler activity. Kids with FINE & STRAIGHT hair generally rely on clips and barrettes for holding the hair rather than ponytail bands, since these often slide right out. Use accessories with rubberized grips to get more secure hold. For little boys, FINE & STRAIGHT hair means that the bowl-cut styles or styles with minimal tapering are well-suited.
If the hair is FINE AND CURLY it will probably tangle easy. Thicker hair tangles too but fine hair is more apt to breakage. Always have a wide toothed comb handy and comb through conditioner before you rinse out.
FINE & CURLY hair may need some layering to prevent bushy, triangle-head looks, but keep the layering shallow. Furthermore, make sure you use the light-formula detangling spray after shampooing or when you need to comb through the hair. FINE & CURLY hair is sometimes prone to tangle – especially if the child is very active – and the curled areas of the hair strand can be weak points which will break more easily. (Just remember to use something light enough that it won’t weigh the hair down too much.) Don’t use a bristled brush, but rather a wide-tooth vent brush to separate the curls or a wide-tooth comb to remove snags. For little boys, the FINE & CURLY hair often means a bowl cut or short circle cut to keep the volume of the hair to a minimum.
Fine hair is hard to manage if you grew up with hair of the opposite texture or had hair with a whole other set of issues. Fine hair may seem more susceptible to tangle because fine hair is very small in diameter. There maybe a lot of it in places, but it is skinny hair. Fine hair has less elasticity so don’t tug too hard at it, it will break. Always have that leave-in conditioner you made above. Less is more with products in finer hair. Work on all tangles from the bottom up. The worst experience a child can have is bad memories of nightly or morning struggles with mom/dad and the hair brush. You will want a boar bristle paddle brush as well, for when the hair is dry. Always brush the hair before you wet it to decrease tangles. 
Make sure you have the right tools. I have recently found this wonderful tangle buster, the MAGIC BRUSH. It really flexes and makes it so easy with less pulling on the scalp. As for styling finer hair, make sure all elastic is coated with fabric or something that will glide easily through the hair.
FINE & THIN hair presents issues when attempting to go with shorter lengths, especially with the super-short cuts often given to little boys. So, try to gauge the length according to the density of the hair. FINE & THICK hair often calls for some layering and many looks need a combination of FINE & THICK hair. Many spiky looks work well with FINE & THICK hair.
MEDIUM textured hair generally follows the basic rules of hair cutting and style choice. The only difficulties come in when the hair is thinner than normal in density.
MEDIUM & THIN hair, regardless of CURL or STRAIGHTNESS, needs to be restricted to shallow layering when layering the hair. Steep layering or cutting the hair too short, can mean that the hair looks even thinner on the scalp.
MEDIUM & THICK hair is often the most wished-for hair type combination. This hair can take layering (especially when MEDIUM & CURLY) and blunt styles (for MEDIUM & STRAIGHT), and usually has a lot of body. Just remember that kids with very THICK hair can often be uncomfortable with long hair because of the heat that is retained by the hair. If you feel that long hair is a must for your child with MEDIUM & THICK hair, consider styles that can be pulled back off the neck and out of the face.
COARSE hair usually develops as kids grow older. A child whose hair is silky & fine at age one, can have COARSE hair by the time they are 5 or 6. COARSE hair textures are common among some ethnic backgrounds as well, and the combination of COARSE hair with other traits can present special problems.The most important thing you should remember about curly hair is that the shorter it is the more curly it will be.
If the hair is thick make sure you learn how to braid or at least twist the hair with conditioner into smaller sections and secure with ribbon or yarn while sleeping. This will loosen the curl and make the hair lay down better. You can use the above mentioned solution of water, conditioner, and hairspray or spray gel. Try to find an alcohol-free spray gel for less drying.
COARSE & THICK hair can be a nightmare to deal with. If the hair is COARSE & THICK & CURLY you definitely want to keep in mind that the hair will be very prone to tangles and breakage. You should always use the above mentioned conditioning spray when combing the hair (and use conditioner after every shampoo). With smaller kids, ideal hairstyles will be those that keep the hair confined and out of danger of being tangled and mussed overmuch during normal activities. Braided and twisted styles are perfect for keeping COARSE & THICK & CURLY styles under control.
COARSE & THICK & STRAIGHT hair is just as needful of conditioning and care, but often responds to layering fairly well, though, styles that are beveled or stacked (such as certain bob styles) are ideal. Be aware that COARSE & THICK & STRAIGHT hair can be just as problematic to keep neat, and that you want to make sure that you use accessories that will be able to hold the hair you’re trying to confine.
Other Common Issues
A common problem some parents have in the morning , no matter what the hair type is the condition known as “BED HEAD”. Bathing at night may be a time saver; however it wreaks havoc on your kids “do”. If you put your child to bed with slightly damp hair or even dry hair they will be victims of what we all know as this well-known morning hair…you know the look, hair going everywhere! Don’t worry, just take that bottle of leave-in conditioner you made (above), and spray lightly on hair or on a hair brush and then distribute evenly over funky areas. If your child has problem with frizz, put a little hair spray into the leave-in conditioner mix (any light-hold/non-aerosal spray will do). Spray on areas of concern and comb through. With young girls you may even pin or clip the front up so it is out of their faces and frizz-free all day.
Yet another important thing to talk about is cutting your child’s bangs. Cut them DRY! Hair shrinks when it is dry 
compared to when it is wet, especially if the hair is curly or wavy or thick, or has cow-licks. Let your little ones hair dry normally. In other words, if you normally let it air dry or blow it dry…do the norm. Take a look and don’t touch or lift the hair, just have them close their eyes and cut according to their face shape. Only cut what hangs in their eyes. Do not search for hair to cut. You are more likely to cut too much into the rest of the hair when you comb and comb looking for more hair to cut. I give free bang trims to all of my client’s children. It takes five minutes!
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