Cutting Hair and Nail Trauma

I remember cutting my son’s fingernails and toenails. He hated having his toenails and fingernails cut with a passion, and fought against it with every ounce of his strength. The question then arises, why bother going through the process? Well, my son’s fingernails were like little razorblades. They were so thin and so sharp, they cut us when we were with him, and they cut him if he scratched at anything, especially his face. The alternative of duct-taping gloves to his hands didn’t seem very practical. In retrospect, his resistance to it was probably an aspect of the Sensory Integration part of his Asperger’s Syndrome; but neither I nor my wife knew that at the time. It wasn’t until he was 4 years old, before he had pediatrician that had a clue. The rest of them kept on handing us books on how to discipline children.

To avoid these kinds of struggles, my wife tried to cut his nails while he was sleeping. She had been given that advice by someone who had done it effectively; but my son would have none of it. The moment he sensed someone was at his toes or his fingers, he was instantly awake. Ultimately we ended up tag-teaming him. He was too strong for either one of us to cut his nails by ourselves, without worrying about injuring him. I would sit him in my lap and restrain his legs, body, and one arm with my legs, body, and arms; while my wife would try to control the other arm with the nails while she cut them. He fought this so hard, he was usually covered in sweat by the time we were done. As for me, I was amazed at how powerful a little baby could be.

I asked my wife when we stopped doing that and she can’t remember. She kept scrapbooks with pictures of certain majour events, but for some reason this was not one of them. My guess is that it was somewhere between his first and second year of life, because I don’t remember doing it after his sister came in being. Eventually he grew to be old enough to accept fingernail cutting and learned to cut his own fingernails; but he still hates it, even to this day.

As for haircutting, my boy came into life with a full head of red hair, but rubbed it all off and started growing blonde hair instead. His first hair cut was shortly after his first birthday. My wife took him to her haircutter and she gave him hair clips to play with and distract him (a technique which did not work with fingernail cutting). This we have scrapbook pictures of, including a before and after picture of him holding and chewing on hairclips, where he looks pretty happy in both pictures. He was still pretty squirmy with haircuts, but eventually he has grown to be old enough to tell the haircutter how he wants his hair to be cut, and lets us know when he needs a haircut.

In the interim period of time, my wife learned and was often told by the hair salon managers, which haircutters were really good with and enjoyed cutting kids’ hair. This little detail makes an enormous difference. My boy probably would have fought his early haircuts a lot harder had we not been aware of this fact. They went to the same kid-friendly haircutter at the same salon every time. Let me tell you the secret: When the kid is distracted, even for an instant, the scissors go to work and can get everything you would want done in a kid’s haircut in a matter of minutes. If the haircutter is really good, the kid will unaware his hair is even being cut.

As for my daughter, no problems. She let her mother cut her fingernails. She enjoyed getting her hair cut from the very time it happened, and seemed to relish the attention. The girl was meant to go to a spa.

The big difference between today’s For Better or For Worse, and what would make the strip work for me is the understanding that Deanna and Michael have moved to Milborough and are having a hard time finding that kid-friendly haircutter. Maybe they have been making the trip back to Toronto to get Robin’s hair cut, at the place he has been going to since he was 1 year old. Maybe gasoline prices have grown so expensive that they don’t want to make that trip to Toronto to do that and they are seeking alternatives. Without that information, what you get is a kid who is 3 years and 5 months old, who should have been getting haircuts for at least 2 years, and he is still not grown up enough to do it.

The alternative explanation is that Robin has, as has often been suggested from watching him over the last few years, development problems. Maybe he has sensory issues in excess of those of my son. Someone should be saying to Deanna that she shouldn’t be having these kinds of problems with Robin at his age. She should not need to have to cut his hair or toenails at night, and she needs to seek help for her son. Oh, the conversation I would have with Deanna Patterson, if I knew her.

Of course, the real alternative is that Lynn Johnston has written Robin into the role of having all the early childhood situations associated with him for plotting purposes, without any consideration of his real-time age from his birthdate. If she hears some story of something some mom did, and the story applies to a kid in the 0.5 – 3 year age range, then Robin gets that story. Meredith Patterson gets all the older sibling stories. Françoise Caine gets all the child of divorce and step-child stories. This is not new for Lynn Johnston. April stayed at “Aypo” age for years past when she should for no other obvious reason than, if Aypo grew up, then there would be no one to carry the young kid stories.

What is boils down to is that Lynn heard a story about some mom cutting their kid's hair while he was asleep and Robin gets that story.