Helping Liam overcome his fear

Liam has never liked to have his hair cut. It's been an ordeal of crying, screaming, begging, pleading and sometime even bribing. We've tried cutting it ourselves, getting a friend who is a hair stylest to come over to our house and we've gone to salons. Usually he ends up with a decent hair cut, with just a few sticky-uppy parts that we try to overlook.

But this past Saturday he would only let the stylest go so far. She could cut the front and the back but NOTHING around the ears. Yeah, he looked swell when we left there. So during his bath on Sunday I cried and screamed and begged and pleaded (or wait, maybe that was him? it was pretty loud, it might have been both of us) and I got the sides cut. It's not pretty, it's not even, but it's cut.

His fear is that his ear will get cut. It never has, though how I'm not sure. You just get primed with the scisors and are about to cut and he yanks his head away or swats at the scissors with his hand. I'm actually surprised he's never lost an eye while getting his hair cut.

A few months ago we bought a pair of clippers thinking that we could use them at home and cut his hair that way. Clippers are safe! You can't get cut, they don't hurt - they should be perfect for him. Till you turn them on and they make noise. Freaked him out!

However after Sunday's fiasco with the scisors, I started talking up the clippers again. They are so safe you can touch them with your hand and they won't cut you!! You can put them on your arm and they won't cut you!! And the biggest one for the 7 year old boy crowd... they won't even cut your penis!!! Come on now.. I was really stretching to get him to try these! After explaining that they could not, would not, ever ever be able to cut the head off an action figure, and that if I could cut the action figure's head off with them then I would buy him the biggest toy I could find, he finally agreed to try them. So I told him that when I got home from work on Monday we would test them out on his arm and hand and he could see how safe they were.

Now Hilary and Liam get home 2 hours before I do. I had not really told Hilary about my full plan of action to conquer the clipper fear, but Liam did. He was so excited to try them out when he got home from school that he couldn't wait for me, so he asked Hilary if he could try them out. Of course she said SURE! after all, she wants him to conquer this fear and make our lives simpler. So what does my wonderful, amazing, smart honey do? Gives the 7 year old boy a pair of clippers and then leaves him alone with them!

Don't despair dear readers! Luckily he had forgotten that I said that they wouldn't even cut his penis, because he did not try that!! He did however test them out on his hair. The one thing that clippers DO cut.

This is what I was able to pick up from his bedroom floor. The rest has been swept away as it was rather widespread. He only tried 2 little areas and he is not bald (luckily!!). For the most part it's not even noticable (thus no picture of him).

And the good news? Other then his penis is still attached? He's no longer scared of the clippers!