Straightening Young Girl's Hair

That I'm against relaxers on small children is no secret, I've done several posts about it. And right now I find myself wanting to speak up against the practice of straightening children's hair period. Be it a blow out or a flat iron. And mostly my opinion on this does not come from a hair health perspective, even though you need to possess the knowledge to straighten curly hair without damaging it. My opinion on this is one that is based on being a brown skinned curly girl growing up in Sweden. And this post is predominantly targeted towards parents in Scandinavia with curly haired kids.

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I see so many parents discussing straightening of their kids hair on places like Facebook. How to do it, which products to use, which tools to use etc. I always find myself torn in what kind of responses to give these parents. I don't want them to permanently damage their children's hair, and I know how to straighten hair without heat damage so I feel inclined to share this information. Partly because some other people who don't really know what they are talking about sometimes give really bad advice. But I feel torn because I don't think they should be straightening their children's hair at all. Why? Because I think it sends the wrong message to the child. I think as a parent you should help your child to love everything about themselves, the perfections and the imperfections. When you are a curly haired child growing up in a country where the majority doesn't look like you most children dream about being like everyone else, maybe that means straight haired and light skinned. It's only normal for a child to go through this. But I think this "identity crisis" can be short lived or long lived depending on the people that child has around them. And when this "crisis" comes it's how it is handled that makes all the difference. A child who has curly hair and longs for straight hair like his or her peers needs to be strengthened in self image and self worth. He or she need to be assured that they are perfect just the way they are and that they don't have to look like everyone else. I think that a child that is growing up brown skinned and curly haired in Scandinavia has to struggle (maybe for as long as they live) to find their identity in a place that still sees them as foreign/the other. I think this is something that both black and white parents that either haven't grown up here or white parents to brown/black children cannot fully relate to. I think that straightening curly hair can cause the child to feel even worse about themselves. Not only because they move away from their natural self but because they most probably will get overwhelmingly positive response in kindergarten/school etc. This could lead to the child feeling like she's only pretty when her hair is straight. Which may not have been the goal of the hair straightening from the parental perspective at all, but could be the result.

Some of you reading this may think I'm overreacting and taking it to an extreme, but in over three years of blogging about hair I've talked to hundreds of women about hair. And I can't remember anyone saying to me that the way their parents cared for their hair when they were children hasn't affected their relationship to their hair in one way or another. Especially women that have grown up in Scandinavian countries. 

Ultimately you as a parent make the choices for your child. Yes, they can ask to have their hair straightened, but you choose. I cannot tell you what to do, but I hope this post at least got you thinking a bit about how a change in hair style is not just a change in hair style, it can be so much more.