I interviewed my mother in law who studied cosmetology for this post. I do not intend to make you a hairdresser, but to enable you to deal with the long locks that your children have likely grown since they have been able to see a real hairdresser.
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The art of distraction
Depending on the age of your children you may need to master this art. Since you will be dealing with your child’s charming looks and sharp scissors you will want them to be staying still for the most part, and not paying attention to what you are doing.
You may want to practice before the actual haircut. Tell them what will be happening and set up a reward system. For example, you may want to let them play games on a tablet or phone, or watch a movie during the haircut, then reward them with a treat or a special game after it is done. During the practice distract them with your method of choice and touch their face, hair, and ears. Brush through their hair and make clipping sounds near their ears (without touching them of course).
Preparation
Choose a time when you can be uninterrupted, and when your child will not be tired. You will need:
- A cape *
- A brush or comb
- A spray bottle (optional)
- Clippers or the scissors*
Substitutions*
if you do not have a cape, you can try these options instead.
- A towel or sheet will work. You can pretend it is a backward superhero cape or whatever else you need to do to get them to keep it on.
- A large t-shirt. Tell your child that they get to have a grown-up haircut like mom or dad, and they can wear one of mom’s or dad’s shirts over their clothes.
- You could have them wear their regular clothes and give them a bath right after the haircut and wash their clothes.
A cape or other covering is important because you don’t want your child to be itchy from the cut hair that will invariably stick to them and you don’t want it getting all over your house either.
You will only need clippers for a boy’s haircut, but I have included instructions to do a haircut with scissors if you don’t have them. Just find the sharpest scissors you have.
Make a plan
You want to plan out the haircut just by looking at your child before you get started. If you just try to go with it in the moment you will make more mistakes.
Take into account whether you will be working with straight or curly hair. Be aware that wet hair will bounce back up to ½ an inch when it dries and even more than that if it’s curly.
Decide how much length you want to take off. For example, if the hair is down to the bridge of the nose and you want it to just above the eyebrows, make a mental note of about how long that is.
General Tip
You can pull the hair out to its full length and hold it between your fingers while you decide where to make your cut, then bring it back in closer to the head releasing tension on the hair and that will help you to make accurate cuts if your child starts to move around while you are cutting.
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For Girls
Bangs
If your daughter has bangs you can decide if you want to do them before or after the rest of the haircut, but in either case you will want to cut them separately from the rest of the hair. I recommend cutting the bangs dry.
Start by tying the rest of the hair up in an elastic or clip and get it out of the way. Make sure that you don’t add any more long hairs to the bangs area by mistake.
Pick up the bangs between your first two fingers at about a 90-degree angle, or about 50% of the way between straight down and straight up. Hold the hair this way while you cut straight across. This will make the hairs on top just a little bit shorter than the hair underneath so that she will have nice feathery looking bangs, instead of bangs that are just cut straight across. You can also make a slight curve in the bangs so that they are a little bit longer on the sides and shorter in the middle to soften them up. See the picture.
Back and sides
A girl’s haircut is easier to do wet. This middle in the back will be the longest part as the sides get brushed more and are more likely to break off from brushing and styling. When you brush all of the hair the back may have a little bit of a V-shape for this reason.
Start by parting the hair in the center so that there is the same amount of hair on both sides of her head. If you are not cutting bangs comb the hair on the crown forward with no part (think Cousin It from the Addams Family). Hold the hair out a little bit away from the head and cut straight across. This will help you to make both sides the same length then you can part it in the middle and make sure it blends with the rest of the hair on the sides do the same thing with the sides. For the back of the hair have her tip her chin to her chest if you can. This will cause the underneath hairs to be slightly shorter than the hairs on the top so that they will have a nice edge.
When gauging “inches” to cut off, gauge from the sides, not the back, since the sides are where she will be able to see it the best. She’s probably not aware that it’s longer in the back due to breakage.
Boy cut with clippers
Start with the longest length of clippers and cut all of the hair. Go from underneath and work upwards against the way the hair grows. You can keep cutting with the next shortest level until you get the hair to be the length you want the longest part to be. When you are happy with the length for the longest part you can move on to blending and shortening the back and sides.
Move up one clipper length at a time.
The next level should go from the bottom of the head up to the crown and stop there (see level 1). Continue with this pattern 3 more times. Move down a size each time and stop about where the arrow is on the pictures (see levels 2-4). This will blend the hair nicely so that it is shorter on the sides and the bottom and longer on the top. For level 4 you will go all the way down to the bottom of the hairline.
Finish up by taking the guard off the clippers and drawing a straight line across the bottom of the back of the hair to clean it up.
Use scissors to cut a curve just above the ears. You can clean up any other spots that don’t seem to blend well with the scissors at this point.
Boy haircut with scissors
Use the sharpest scissors you have.
Keep in mind how much you want to cut off from your plan and try to use that as a guide while you are cutting so that you don’t cut any part too short.
Start with cutting the hanging length on dry hair. This is the hair on the forehead, around the ears and the nape of the neck. You can just cut straight across where you want the hair to be.
After you have cut the hanging length you can wet the hair with a wet comb or a spray bottle to help the hair stick together and make the rest of the haircut easier.
Use your first two fingers to hold a section of the hair vertically. Once you have the hair in your fingers you can release the tension on it to help with a wiggly kid. Keep in mind how much you decided to cut off and cut off that much in an even cut. Follow the shape of the skull all the way around the head.
You may have some scissor marks in straight hair, but it will be less apparent in wavy hair. There are ways to completely remove any scissor marks, but they are some advanced techniques and will be difficult to do on a wiggly kid. If you stick to taking sections of the hair vertically you can minimize these.
I hope this post helps you to feel confident in your ability to cut your kid’s hair. Please leave any other tips or suggestions in the comments section and if you enjoyed this post please share it on Pinterest!
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