How I Solved the Mystery of Haircuts for My Nonverbal Son with Autism

Raising a nonverbal child with autism is a constant stream of discovery. Without the ability to explain his feelings or fears, Lucas leaves much of that to me. As his father, I need to pay attention to the signs.

Early on, this wasn’t all that different from children who still had emerging language. A baby can’t say, “Yo, I’m hungry.” They simply cry, which could mean a ton of things. It becomes a matter of observation and perception to find the root of the tears.

That perception goes beyond crying though. When Lucas was younger, we started to notice that when he became very tired, he’d start to tap out like a UFC fighter. Sprawled out on the floor, he’d slap his hand repeatedly into the ground like an untrained sparring partner. It didn’t take long before we tied that motion together with his exhaustion.

After the tap, the hysterical laughter would follow. In the most adorable belly laugh you’ve ever heard, my non-verbal little fella would start chuckling uncontrollably. We’d all laugh too until it turned to tears and screams. Shortly after that, he’d pass out.

Understanding it all out wasn’t a problem. We figure these things out for our kids. Recognizing signs like that is common and most parents have similar stories. However, as the dad to a child with autism and without verbal language, there are some other, tougher paths to cross.

I’ve talked about his mystery injuries or surprise sicknesses. When your kid can’t tell you the story behind his phantom limp or complain about a tummy ache, you’re kind of stuck. You hope that his walking straightens out before heading to the doctor or cover your head when the unexpected vomit starts raining down. It just is what it is.

The hardest mystery we ever faced, however, was haircuts. This upkeep of my son’s head was a necessity and one he didn’t go into lightly. To my little Sampson, one snip or buzz on his noggin was an act of war.

We had the initial battles with “autism-friendly” hairdressers. That was awful for everyone involved and a memory that stays with me to this day. Watching these professionals, claiming to know how to work with a child like mine, struggling to do what they claim they could was tough enough. Watching them roll their eyes or sigh exaggeratedly was enough to send me home to do the job myself.

That’s what I did. Since Lucas was about three years old, I’ve been the one who cuts his hair. I buzz the sides on 3, fade into a 4.5, and then do the top on 6. I leave a little flip in the front just for style. We’re good like that.

It sounds so simple and, to be honest, it is…today. However, there were years upon years of fights that left us both tired, sore, and unhappy.

I had no idea why and, that uncertainty led me to buy all the typical “autism” reasons that the experts on Google write about. In order to keep my son presentable and clean, I needed to know what I could do to make his haircuts easier.

There were expensive buzzers that promised to be quieter than others. Of course, Lucas never had issues with booming sounds and, once I put that $80 cutter to his head, I learned that it was never about the sound. All it did was make his screams sound louder in comparison.

At one point, I purchased a pair of guided scissors. This ridiculous gadget, straight from Carrotop’s briefcase, looked like a regular pair of shears with a buzzer-like attachment on it. This item was silent, but it also didn’t work. No hair was cut, but his fingers nearly were as he covered up to stop me.

Fast forward through all the impulse buys and, years later, we eventually cut to the true answer. The day it happened, I had no idea why.

One day, Lucas simply stopped fighting. He stood perfectly still at the sink, swiped his iPad as dead follicles fell upon it, and let me give him a snazzy new ‘do. I remember being so proud…and confused.

It took a while before I was able to piece it all together. When I did, I couldn’t believe it. The trick behind getting him to endure haircuts?

Do them more often.

What? Yeah. Seriously. More often. The event that my son hated, destroyed the bathroom, and took a piece of my soul was something he needed more of, not less.

Why? Because the longer his hair was, the more the buzzer would pull on it. That was the problem. It wasn’t the sound or the cut itself. It was the yanking on his skull that he hated.

How…the hell…was I supposed to know that? How could I have ever found this out naturally on my own? When your kid hates something, you wait it out. I’d let weeks and weeks go by and the hair grow out, dreading his eventual buzz. In my mind, the more time that passed, the less of a fight we would have.

I never would have guessed that the issue was the hair pulling and yet, here we were. It was this discovery that allowed us to have the easy peasy cuts we do now. Today, when it tugs a little hard, he’ll look up at me with an angry expression and whine. I apologize. We move on.

Solving the haircut mystery was a pretty pivotal moment for me in terms or realizing that there is always a reason behind my son’s actions. It’s never “just autism”. His agitation might be something specific for him, but it’s something. I make it my goal to find out what those issues are and, when I can’t figure them out, I make it a point to be understanding and patient.

No matter how hard it is for me, as a parent, to know why my non-verbal child is upset, it’s nothing compared to how hard it must be for him. As long as I remember that, keeping my patience in the face of struggles like this is never a problem.