🦚Why does your ex target your child's hair?

If I had a dollar for every post I’ve read from protective moms about their ex deliberately ruining their child’s hair, maybe I wouldn’t be a millionaire, but I’d definitely be able to spend that money on a beautiful weekend (for two) at a luxury destination hotel.

Too many mothers have experienced the horror of having their child come back from the other parent's house with their hair chopped off without warning. Someone’s ex even sent back their child with partially shaved eyebrows. Or sometimes their hair's been damaged in some other way.

It seems so petty to get upset, doesn't it? Hair grows back. But here's what your gut already knows: the real issue isn’t hair at all.

The hair control playbook

One day, Sarah's son returned from a weekend at dad’s with red spray paint in his hair that meant his head had to be shaved. She was dealing with more than just a “bad hair day.” She was witnessing a calculated move in her ex's ongoing campaign of control.

Hair becomes a weapon because it hits multiple targets at once. Your abusive ex knows exactly what they're doing when they:

Target your child's appearance preferences. If your child loves their long hair, suddenly it's “too messy” and gets chopped off. If they want it short for sports, suddenly they're not allowed to cut it at all.

Violate agreements you've made. You discuss haircuts and agree on a plan. Then your child comes back with something completely different, teaching them that agreements don't matter and Mom's input is worthless.

Create "evidence" of your “overreaction.” When you're upset about the damaged hair, you're painted as reactive, shallow, vain, or “caring more about appearance than your child's wellbeing.”

Force you into an impossible position. Do you fix the damage and risk being accused of “erasing” their father's choices? Or do you leave it and watch your child suffer the social consequences?

Why this goes far beyond vanity

Hair is a marker of personal identity, sexuality, and individual choice. That’s why cults often control how members wear their hair. And the little cult that you belonged to before leaving your ex and that your child is now forced to belong to is no exception.

One of the first things I did when I left my ex was to get my shoulder-length hair chopped off. I sobbed in the hairdresser’s chair because, for the first time in years, I was choosing how to wear my own hair without any fear of repercussions.

So, he pivoted to controlling how and where my kids got their hair cut.

My kids got off easy compared to others. Their dad had cut their hair with clippers when we were together. So, now, in true oppositional coercive controller style, he was refusing to do that. He always interrogated them about where they got it done when they turned up with a new haircut. He told them they weren’t allowed to get it cut by my friend, as she was a member of my “toxic sisterhood.” Even though he never did anything to ruin their hair, his attempts at control here mirrored cult tactics of isolating members from outside support systems.

Your child's hair represents something much deeper than appearance. It's one of the few aspects of their body that they can control and express themselves through. When that control is taken away arbitrarily, several devastating messages get embedded:

Your preferences don't matter. Your other parent's input is irrelevant. Adults can do whatever they want to your body. You have no say in decisions that affect you.

Even though hair grows out, the shame and humiliation of a supremely bad haircut often stay forever imprinted on a child. I can still remember how I wept as a seven-year-old when another girl in our neighborhood cut off one of my pigtails. My brother can feel, like it happened yesterday, the embarrassment of having to go to school with a hat on after he accidentally shaved some of his hair down to his scalp.

Hair abuse is particularly insidious because it's visible, permanent in the short term, and often dismissed by others as trivial. The child carries the evidence of their powerlessness on their head for weeks or months.

When an abusive parent humiliates a child by shaving or ruining their hair (or their eyebrows), they’re also grooming the child. They’re doing it to break down the child’s sense of autonomy and their confidence, and manipulate the child into seeing it as a form of affection (like the ex mentioned above who framed disastrous haircuts as a “fun activity between father and daughter”). The humiliation and isolation that children experience as a result of a terrible haircut lay the foundation for the abusive parent to manipulate their emotions and perceptions.

Where is your system breaking down?

In an earlier newsletter, I talked about a climbing instructor who said that when you fall, you don't just get up and climb again. You stand there and analyze why you fell. You figure out where your system broke down.

The same principle applies here. When your ex pulls a stunt like spray-painting your child's hair, your natural response might be to:

• Immediately react with anger

• Try to “fix” everything right away

• Focus on the visible damage

• Get pulled into defending your child's right to normal hair

But what if, instead, you analyzed the system breakdown?

What was your ex really trying to achieve? Control over your child's appearance? A reaction from you? Evidence for court that you're “difficult”?

Where are your protective systems failing? Communication protocols about decisions affecting your child? Clear consequences for violating agreements? Documentation of these incidents?

What support structures need strengthening? Your child's ability to advocate for themselves? Your documentation system? Your network of witnesses who can attest to the pattern?

Building a stronger system

Here's what analysis of the hair abuse pattern reveals about building more resilient systems:

Document everything with specificity. Not just “Dad cut Johnny's hair” but “Child returned with hair spray-painted red, requiring complete head shave due to damage. No prior discussion or consent for chemical application to child's hair.”

Focus on the pattern, not the incident. One bad haircut could be explained away. A documented pattern of hair-related control becomes much harder to dismiss.

Reframe it into what it really is. This isn't a dispute about grooming preferences. You need to take control of the narrative and make it clear to the court that the real issues are bodily autonomy, parental decision-making violations, and psychological control.

Strengthen your child's voice. Age-appropriately help them understand they have a right to input about their own body and appearance.

Build your support network's understanding. Help teachers, family members, and friends recognize that these aren't “petty” disputes but part of a larger abuse pattern.

What to do when it happens

In the immediate aftermath:

Take photos from several angles before making any changes. Document your child's emotional response. Record the date, time, and circumstances.

For your child:

Validate their feelings about the change. Let them lead the conversation about whether and how to address it. Avoid bad-mouthing the other parent while still acknowledging their feelings. Focus on their autonomy and choices going forward.

For the long term:

Update your documentation system to include appearance-related control tactics. Consider whether this warrants communication with your lawyer. Look for patterns that might be relevant to custody arrangements.

The deeper truth about control

Every time your ex pulls a stunt like this, they're actually revealing their own desperation at their loss of control. Think about it. A grown adult who needs to assert dominance through a child's haircut is someone whose control is already slipping. It’s pathetic, really.

Your job isn't to prevent every incident. That's impossible when you’re dealing with someone who’s determined to cause harm. Your job is to build systems that minimize damage, document patterns, and protect your child's long-term wellbeing.

The climbing instructor was right. When you fall, you analyze why. Every time you analyze a fall and strengthen your system, you become a better climber. Every incident your ex creates becomes data that makes you more strategic, more prepared, and ultimately more powerful.

Your next step

This week, review any appearance-related incidents from the past year. Look for patterns in timing, triggers, and your ex's methods. Document what you find. And remember: the aim of your analysis isn’t to prevent your ex from being an abuser. You’re building systems that protect what matters most: your child's long-term wellbeing and your own peace of mind.

Your child’s hair will grow back. What you’re really fighting for is to make sure that your child's confidence in you as their safe person and their resilience don’t get shaved away forever.

Want to know how I can help you?

When you're dealing with hair sabotage and other forms of post-separation abuse, it's easy to feel like you're losing your grip on what matters most. The constant power plays, the documentation demands, the fear that you're not protecting your child effectively enough. All of these can leave you questioning everything.

Feel free to reach out to me for a 30-minute consultation, free of charge, where you can get it all off your chest. You’ll leave our session with clarity on the outcomes you want and your main priorities, whether or not you decide to continue working with me.

Want to know more about what I do?

Resources

Teaching our kids about boundaries and how important it is to assert them (and to respect others’ boundaries) is a vital part of being a parent, and doubly so when the other parent disrespects the child’s bodily boundaries by mutilating their hair. Your ex is telling your child, “You don’t have a say over your own body" when they do this, and it primes and grooms your child for physical and sexual abuse throughout their lifetime.

Thank heavens that, unlike when I grew up in the 70s and 80s, kids are expected to learn about bodily boundaries and there are a gazillion books for kids on this topic. Reading these books to your kids is one way you can help make your children stronger and more resistant to brainwashing and manipulation from a coercive controller without having the cloud of parental alienation allegations hanging over you.

I’m not going to recommend a specific book on bodily autonomy because there are so many, and the right book depends on your child’s age. Some of these books say “tell mommy and daddy”, which would probably stick in your throat when you know the other parent is not a safe person to help your child with boundaries. So, maybe you’ll want to look for books that advise kids to talk to a trusted adult, and make sure the book you’re reading with your child tells them it’s okay to say “no” to a trusted adult as well.

I looked for children’s books about bad haircuts, and they all seemed to be about the accidental type you get from your big sister (or the girl down the road, in my case), or designed to persuade a child to feel comfortable with getting their hair cut. There are plenty of great books on boundaries around hair written for Black kids, like Sharee Miller’s Don’t Touch My Hair, which I really liked. While this book is specifically written for Black children's experiences, the core message about bodily autonomy and hair respect is universal and valuable for all children.