Parenting Dilemma No. 374

Having a daughter has to be the hugest trip in the world for a woman. I mean, with boys, there is always a sense of mystery. I can’t identify with what a boy goes through when he is young. But a girl. Whew, can I ever identify with that. The dolls and the tomboy-ish tendencies and the mean girls and all that pink. Okay, so I wasn’t really a “pink” kind of girl, but in general, Lucy and I are fairly similar. She’s more outgoing than me, prettier (she got her daddy’s eyelashes, lucky kid) and definitely more enchanting. I feel like the traits she got from me, for the most part, are what make her totally awesome. She’s funny, sarcastic, silly, nerdy, kind, a good friend…all things that I hope I have passed on to her and that she will continue to cultivate and use throughout her life.

But along with all of those lovely things has been one teeny, tiny, little problem. Lucy is a hair twirler. And it’s all my fault.

When I was a kid, most of the negative attention I got in terms of nasty habits was in response to my semi-constant thumb sucking. I twirled my hair too (and still do, at times), but I sucked my thumb until I was twelve, and my teeth and dignity paid the price. My parents were more concerned about how much braces would cost then how awful my hair looked due to how much I’d yanked out. Lucky for me, my niece was also a thumb sucker, but her mom (my sister) was able to break her by the time she was in kindergarten, so when the time comes for Lulu to stop, I’ll have a template, a plan to go by. The hair twirling isn’t so easy.

I know it shouldn’t be a big deal. And it’s not, really, but I can’t help but feel like I’m failing her. It’s a crutch, a neurosis that is difficult to break. She does it when she’s tired or bored and sometimes when she’s just sad. I send her off to school every day in cute little pigtails, and by the time I pick her up, her fine, blond waves are waving loose in the breeze, resembling a mullet more than any three-year-old’s hair ever should. When she absentmindedly pulls out her hair ties, she takes chunks of hair with them, and every time she twirls her loose hair, it gets caught up in tangles that have to be cut out. Along with her naturally fine hair, these missing chunks are making her look, for lack of a better word, totally ridiculous.

And then I start to beat up on myself. Why do I care so much? Who cares if her hair is silly looking? Am I actually that vain?

And the answer to that question is, unfortunately, partially yes. I think it’s human nature to want our kids to be adorable and not being able to control that is hard. The deeper issue, of course, is getting Lu to release that mental crutch so she doesn’t have problems later (kids with issues like thumb-sucking/hair twirling/fingernail biting are more likely to become smokers as adults…in fact, the only time I stopped twirling was my two years as a semi-smoker in college). So we’re doing our best. Catching her mid-twirl and identifying what she’s doing so it isn’t an absent-minded thing. Sticker reward charts for leaving her pigtails in all day. Giving her ribbons to rub between her fingers when she’s tired or nervous. I guess it’s working, although I really don’t know. She does fairly well at home, but goes to school and has a pretty hard time. Her lovely teacher is trying to help, but there is only so much she can do with a class of ten kids to oversee.

I guess what I’m asking is, any advice? Anyone out there dealt with this sort of issue before? Should I just shave her head? She could always be psycho-Britney Spears circa 2007 for Halloween!