Getting a haircut seems so simple and effortless…right? You sit in a chair and have to do nothing
while someone else works to cut your hair.
I mean really…what could be the problem?
You were probably too young to remember your very first haircut, but for
some the first one is a little scary.
Some stranger is touching your head or maybe your mother is placing a
big set of scissors over your head and you are not sure what she is going to
do.
I remember some of my haircuts as a child, because
they were memorable moments with my dad.
We would walk or drive to this barbershop that was just a little ways
from the house where I grew up from the time of birth to about 8 years-old. We could actually see the barbershop from my
parent’s front porch. It was an old
school barbershop with the barber wearing a white coat, they would use an
electric razor and scissors to cut our hair, and he would tilt my dad back in
the chair in order to shave his face with a straight razor. I had hoped to make
similar memories with my son one day.
While most children get use to the haircutting
process at a young age, children with autism may take a few years longer if
they ever get use to and adapt to it at all.
In the beginning with Zach, my wife had to sit in the chair with Zach on
her lap and keep him in essentially a body lock to stop him from flaring his
arms and legs while the barber quickly cut his hair. He did not like the vibration of the electric
hair razor or the sensation of the hair falling on his face. We had to keep a towel over his face during
the haircut and an extra shirt in the car as he could not stand the hair clinging
to his clothes.
As time went on and Zach got older we made the
decision that Zach had to learn to sit in the chair by himself, because it was
part of teaching him independence and it would just look odd having an older
kid or teenager sitting in his mother’s lap to get a haircut. We started with Debby standing next to the
barber chair while still holding a towel over his face and of course a shirt in
the car ready for him to change. After
several haircuts we then removed the towel from his face and let him get use to
the sensation of hair falling on his face.
We eventually stopped bringing a shirt for him to change into in order to
get him familiar with the fact that after a haircut you might have to walk
around with hair on the shoulders of your shirt and down your back until you
can get home and wash off. The big step
for Zach was getting him to go back with the barber by himself.
One day I decided to take Zach to the same place I
go for a haircut, Sportclips. This place
is a sports themed barbershop for men and boys and you can watch ESPN on flat
screen televisions while getting your haircut.
The first few times I took Zach to Sportclips I walked to the back with
him, told the barber he had autism, and stood nearby while they cut his
hair. Then the third or fourth time the
barbers were use to Zach, and I let him go to the back by himself and he did
awesome. He sat appropriately in the
chair, listened to the directions from the barber, and even responded to some
of the questions the barber asked. We
will continue to go to Sportclips as Zach is now use to the environment and the
barbers are now use to him. Zach has
made some tremendous progress and we have made some cool memories.
