Ellie has long, long hair that almost reaches her waist. She loves her long hair and she always has. She's let me give her occasional trims, but never wants her hair to be cut. She wears it in a braid almost every day.
Sunday evening, she came up to me and asked me to cut her hair. Short.
Its hardly a coincidence after what happened last week with her hair getting pulled by a bully.
Just when I thought she was doing great dealing with the after effects of the bullying, she came out with this. She wants to cut her long, gorgeous hair, because of that awful, mean bully. She is willing to do something as this drastic to avoid being a target.
I feel like we've crossed a line. What else? What now? Is this just the beginning? I'm trying to turn this into a valuable lesson for her. But inside I'm just breaking for her.
This bully has stolen something from her. And I want it back.
I want to pull her off the bus and drive her to school every day. I've even had the thought of homeschooling cross my mind. This is serious.
I'm feeling so overwhelmed about this. I found some great tips on dealing with the after-effects of trauma in kids in this article. I want her to know she is safe, to address her feelings and fears. And I'm trying to deal with my own feelings and fears as well.
About Melissa
what a trial for you to go through this with you little girl! i wish i had some sage advice but i offer my prayers for her spirit and heart, and for your forgiveness to be stronger than mine would be!
So sorry to hear about Ellie’s experience. But thank you for sharing the ways you have dealt with the situation as I am learning from it. My older daughter is headed to school next year and although we think she will hold her own based on her daycare/preschool experience so far, it is so difficult to say so when she will be one of the smaller/younger ones in a totally different environment. Although I am not going through it myself, I can only imagine a sliver of the frustration and pain you’re feeling as a mom.
Oh hun. I am so sorry. After Hunter was bullied, he asked all kinds of questions and made lots of requests. Since taking him off the bus was not an option, we sat with him (all 4 of us, that’s a sight) and talked about what happened and what we and he can do to make it better for him.
Talking is the only advise I can give you. Letting her know that you are there, and willing to help anyway you can.
Lots of hugs to you and Ellie!!
not to down-play the bully thing, but are you sure she doesn’t just want it to be short because she has a friend who has short hair, and she likes it?
She’s definitely at the age where kids want to be like their friends, and there are lots of cute short cuts out there now that are really popular (your own cut being an example).
I don’t know, because i don’t live with you guys, and maybe you already have, but i would make sure that that isn’t the reason she wants it cut first, before you assume it’s because of the bullying thing.
I had a bully or 2 in my younger years, and never once do i recall reacting to it so strongly.
It seems like a bit of a drastic reaction coming from the more logical and less dramatic of your 2 girls!
no, she told us it was because she didn’t want the girl to pull her hair again.
we hated to tell her that even if she cut it super short, this girl would probably still find a way to pull it!
That just breaks my heart for poor Ellie! Little girls can be so mean – I can still remember the names of every single girl who was mean to me in elementary school. I’ve been praying for Ellie. I’ll pray specifically today that God can turn this into a positive lesson for you all.
I can’t stand bullies. I feel for you and know that the mama bear in me would come out too. Let me know how things work out.
Oh, my heart aches for you both. I’m so sorry. I’ll be praying for the whole situation
Hi there,
I thought our story might be of interest whilst on the topic.
I’ve got a now 6yr old son, who’s a non-identical twin, and he has ‘really’ long hair. I mean it’s down to his waist virtually.
When they were born my boys were virtually bald and it took until they were 2 to have what I’d call ‘proper’ hair, if you know what I mean.
So having taken so long for it to get there we were loath to cut either head of hair when they both got to that bit where they almost looked more like twin girls than boys
One of them’s hair suited them and so we let it grow and the other one we cut shorter as it didn’t look so good to my mind.
When they went to nursery at 3 it was make or break time. A couple of other boys kept on saying that he was a girl, when they knew that he wasn’t, so were at least teasing him, but obviously not realising what effect it was having on him.
When he first told us about it, because he wanted his hair cut, we quizzed him about why etc rather than just do it because he asked for it, as he loved his hair.
We told him to ignore the boys, reminding him that some of their mums had short hair like a man.
This worked for quite a long time, in fact until school I think. By then he was quite used to it but a second onslaught of teasing boys was enough for him to start asking again – and we knew that he really did love his long hair as Daddies a biker with long hair too and he’s his idol, so he’s copying him.
So this time we suggested that he have the top long bit cut short, like No.4 short and keep the back bit long as Daddy has it, a bit like a mullet. This did the treat beautifully!
He’s still very proud of his ‘biker’ hair cut and often gets attention from older children and teens admiring it – on holiday he was even asked if someone could take a photo of the back of his hair. He went rather shy as they were about 12-14 yr old girls but as they walked off was more or less strutting with pride!
I’m so pleased with the results so far as we really set out to teach him to stand up for himself in a non-violent way, and to not care about what others think of him and it seems to have worked at least on this issue