The Things We Say: Speaking to Children

I grew up like many others out there hearing how difficult my hair was. Even though I did received compliments on my hair as a child, the person that matter the most at that time complained a lot about my hair. My mother struggled and struggled with my hair, and though I can't remember her saying anything intentionally mean about my hair, she did complain about it a whole lot. As a young child you believe everything your parents say blindly, they are the people you want to become when you grow up, they are the ones with all the answers. Somewhere along the line this difficulties that my hair presented to my mom were internalized by me, I believed my hair was difficult and would always be. Even as I grew older that's what I believed, that I had difficult hair. Even when people would compliment it I would frown and complain about what a hassle it was. Honestly I had nothing to base that on, because I managed better than my mom to care for my own hair quite early on. And I slowly learnt what worked and what didn't work for my hair. But I still had the mindset of my hair being difficult and not as good as straight hair.

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So what do I won't to say with this post? Well basically I just want to remind the parents out there to watch what you tell your children about their hair (and about other things too of course) because it stays with them for much longer than you may remember what you said. I'm not a fan of extensions or relaxer in children's hair, not only because of what it does physically to the child's hair, but also because of the consequences it has on the child's identity. If you relax your child's hair or put in extensions and then your child receives compliments and praise for this look, he or she may think that the natural way his or her hair is is not good enough. And in turn your child may not feel good enough. For some hair is just hair, but for many of us hair is more than just hair because of the relationship to it created early on.

So even if you as a parents are experiencing hurdles when it comes to your child's hair, don't take it out on your child. Praise their natural beauty and find tools to deal with what you find difficult. 'Cause to be honest, hair is not difficult, it's you who needs to acquire the knowledge on how to care for it.