A few days ago Nanuk, the boy in the photo, appeared with a new haircut made by himself. I asked his mother to lend me the image to talk about it because I find it very curious that many children decide one day to pick up scissors and cut their hair.
Some say they do it to be more handsome, to get attention or to look like someone who has shorter hair. Each child probably has a different reason, but we will explain the most common ones to try to answer the question: Why do children cut their hair?
Because scissors are a prohibited object
The first of the reasons is related to reverse psychology: "Oblige me and I will not want to do it, forbid it and I will." Children have knives and scissors banned, and that is why we usually find them sitting at the table with a knife in their hands, as if looking to know what it feels like with one of them, or see what happens, just before we approach they with their eyes wide open and their hands almost up as if saying "do not move ..." or we find them with scissors cutting the first paper they catch.
Well that, as we do not let them take the scissors, when they access some they are able to cut as many things as they have seen adults cut. Since the hair is something that everyone cuts, whether in a hairdressing salon, or at home when you give yourself four touches, the children get theirs and do the same.
Because they want to look like someone
Another possible reason is to want to look like someone who has shorter hair, be it the teacher, a boy in the class who likes them (or girl) or someone who, for whatever reason, serves as a model. They look in the mirror, consider that with the hair they have they do not look like that person and try to remedy it.
Because it's fun to play a hairdresser
Other children do it playing. After 18 months or so, children adopt the so-called symbolic game, which is what they use to play people who are not or to make their dolls and dolls talk. It is a real life essay that helps them learn to be like adults.
It is enough to see a hairdresser with expert hands cut mom's hair and making the surrounding people direct compliments of "you have gone to the hair, how beautiful", so that a boy (perhaps more likely a girl) wants to do the same, get others to be handsome or, since it is more at hand, cut one's hair to have that power.
Because when they cut their hair they are handsome
It would be the same as I just explained, but without the need or concern of being a hairdresser. Nanuk has a little brother who seems to have received many compliments lately. Tired of anyone telling him, he thought he needed to do something that would bring the attention of others, something that made him look more handsome and that's why he cut his hair.
What happens when a child goes to the hairdresser and cuts his hair? What happens when your mother cuts her hair? What happens when you change your hairstyle? Well, we adults observe the change of image and, I suppose, by inertia, we compliment the children: "Alex man, if your hair has been cut, how handsome you are!", "Ivet, your hair has been cut, what it suits you! You are very pretty! "
Well he He thought that by cutting his hair he would receive the same gestures of admiration that he was granted when his hair was cut and that's why he appeared with that shear.
Because they don't have too much sense of self-image
Children have no problem making horrible bangs or shears impossible to fix because they don't have too much sense of self image. Put a 4 or 5 year old boy in terribly ugly pants with an even uglier shirt and see what happens. In most cases nothing happens, because they do not care exactly. In fact, you can even put the shirt inside the pants and raise the pants to the armpit that will only be lowered if it bothers them. Now, do it every day and take them to school like this. As they receive comments they will change their mind and it will no longer seem so good to wear such attire.
With the hair the same thing happens. Girls may be more flirtatious and look more at their hairstyles, but the majority of boys and girls care little about their hair and have no qualms about cutting it off, because for them it is nothing more than hair, something they have in their head that grows and bothers their eyes until someone cuts it. We are the ones who see a shear and we are horrified, but for the "how am I going to take my son with this hair ... to see how I fix it", which is still a "what will they say".
Concluding
In short, there are many possible causes that make a boy or girl appear with a strange hairstyle that makes us tremble, but as you can see, most have little or no importance. If anything, I would worry a little when the child seeks attention and seeks that adults tell him how handsome he is, more than anything to make him feel good. This is something that can be achieved by spending more time with him and making him feel loved and important, like the little one (in the case of Nanuk, making adults see that the older brother also wants others to notice him).
In the case of the rest, I would not go beyond explaining how dangerous scissors can be and that, until the fashion of wearing hair as if you cut it with the mower does not extend, wear a bald head or a shear does not usually look good.
