Raising a Boy: Long Hair?
Posted in Adolescent., Grooming and Bathing, Sports, Teens, Tween on September 13th, 2010 by AnonymousDad – 2 Comments 
So you are raising a boy with long hair?
On another Mom-helping site, I saw a question posted on this issue. In general, the discussion was about, “Why would anyone let their sons have long hair?!”
Our thoughts in a nutshell: your boy’s hair is the least of your concerns. His sexuality is not determined or indicated by his hairstyle. For boys, hairstyle is either part of the many personalities he’ll try on or he’s just oblivious to it. Don’t worry.
If your son is in school, his hairstyle is probably right in line with what the peer group deems acceptable. Even when a boy does an AGM (attention-getting mechanism) such as wearing a Mohawk, dying his hair blue or shaving it all off, his hair will still fall within his peers’ acceptability range.
If he is into athletics, even as a little boy, his sport will help determine his haircut. For both practical and personality reasons, how he wears his hear will be either functional for activity or functional for personality.
It is also possible that your son really does not care about how long or short his hair is. He may never even really think about it.
Hairstyles come and go. As a parent, you need to choose your battles. Is hairstyle really a battle that you want to fight over? If you are worried about what the neighbors or grandparents are going to say, then you need to gently educate those people or smile politely and ignore them. As your son gets older, he will push the limit with at least one really dangerous AGM. Do you want to approach that must-stop-now demand with the same energy as when you complained about his hair?
You are raising a boy to be a good man as nature made him. Don’t fret about his hair. Raise your children to be free to discover their own path.
For more reading suggestions about raising boys, please see our special Amazon store.
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Sean Buvala is the director of raisingaboy.net with 25 years experience in developing family and youth projects. He is the author of “DaddyTeller: How to be a Hero to Your Kids and Teach Them What’s Really Important by Telling them One Simple Story at a Time” which is available at Amazon.com . Photo for this article courtesy of fotolia.com
