Monster Scissors!!!

David hates haircuts! One time, I was giving my oldest son, Matthias, a haircut, David screamed as I was cutting the first lock on Matthias' head. Next thing I knew, David ran out the front door and hid behind the closest dumpster. He absolutely refused to come back inside unless I put away the scissors and comb. My daughter was kind enough to go outside and stay with David until I finished the haircuts for  Matthias and Michael. Once I was able to prove to David that the scissors were gone, he hesitantly came back inside.

To my dismay, David's hair grew until you could braid them.

Autistic kids are known to have sensory issues and they seem to vary from one autistic kid to another. It's one of the first things that people either tend to recognize or not understand and then misjudge. It's not because the kid doesn't know how to behave or they're trying to upset anyone around them. It's not like that at all really. They don't have control over certain senses of their bodies and it makes them scared and try to find a way to calm themselves down. David often grunts, for instance, at random times when he's happy. David also gets scared around loud noises and would wear a hat to feel more secure. This presents the reason why he doesn't like haircuts. It's because he is afraid of the noise from the scissors. 

To finally get David to take a haircut, I had to enlist the help of one of my sisters who also happens to be a nurse. She was well aware of his sensory issues over his head and the noise that he was scared of. I held David in my lap and wrapped my arms around him like a hug while she cut. David struggled a bit but he knew, there was no getting out of this one. So instead, David would resort to saying, "Hey!" or "Don't cut it!". Then after my sister cut a lock, David would say, "You cut it!" I guess I was determined to cut my son's hair because I was covered with his thick, scratchy hair afterwards. But hey! He no longer looks like a hobo. 

Siska DeYoung