I want to dye my hair blue, Dad

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Rico_S

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I have daughters that want to put a little fun color in their hair for summer—like a blue or green streak, or dye the ends red. Something along those lines. I have seen others do it. 8 years ago, I can say without a doubt my answer would have been an emphatic no! But now, I really don’t have a problem with it and see it as more or less harmless.

So…would you let your kids do it?

FWIW…their ages range from 4th grade----> highschool. All attend catholic schools, are excellent students, and are generally good kids.
 
I can’t see the harm in it whatsoever, provided that the eldest understand that you can’t do it in school and that it could hurt potential summer job opportunities.
 
I’d totally let my daughter dye her hair, especially since its summer. Its just hair, it will grow out.
 
I would consider allowing my kids to do it. I don’t have kids but my mom did and she allowed me to dye my hair fun colors when I was in high school. I have done it recently; I have had blue, teal and apple green at the nape of my neck so someone might get only a peek of color unless I had my hair up in a French twist. Lately I’ve had it in the front and sides of my hair. The color I use is a salon brand and semi-permanent (which means it doesn’t wash out right away but fades gradually) but most stuff I’ve seen in stores is temporary. I haven’t tried hair chalk.

I’m an adult and I have a job. My boss hasn’t said anything which means she doesn’t like it but my clients, coworkers, and other professionals I collaborate with have told me they like it. Many people are surprised and said they didn’t expect it from me.
 
You might want to take them on a trip down fashion’s memory lane first. After all, don’t the most fashion-forward of each generation of youth look the most ridiculous years later? When a fashion comes around that no one has ever done before, most of the time there was a reason for that. Of all the wild teens and young adults who were doing drugs in Mom or Grandma’s time, if even none of them were putting Jello colors in their hair, what does that tell you about what a great idea this is? :hmmm:

If that sensible caution doesn’t bother them and if none are trying to get jobs that would make that kind of color unprofessional, well, since it is 2013 they can take solace in the fact that there will only be about 200 pictures of them taken between now and when the natural color has to come back for the start of school. It is only color, only a fashion. No one takes it as evidence of some kind of rebellion any more. The embarrassment of this kind of impulsive follow-the-herd fashion choice never killed any of the rest of us, and it won’t kill them.
 
I would. Part of summer fun is doing crazy hairdos. One summer I went to camp and a counselor put all of our hair into cornrows. It took her a week to do everyone, but it created solidarity in our unit. When I went home, I wanted to keep them in for the rest of the summer, but my mom made me take them out.
 
Go for it. 👍

It’s not permanent and it’s fun and harmless. I would absolutely let my daughters dye their hair if they so choose.
I used to have washable hair dye in school colors to wear when I was cheerleading. My mom bought it for me through her avon lady.
I’d wear it game night and wash it out for school on Monday.

I honestly don’t see it any different then wearing bright and colorful ribbons. It just takes a little bit longer to come out.
 
My brother and sister-in-law always had a rule of thumb for which battles they would fight with my nephews and which ones they would ignore.

Something temporary was not worth going to the mat over. You want to cut your hair some strange way – it will grow out. You want to dye your hair – it will either fade or grow out.

On the other hand, you want to get a tattoo? That’s one to fight.

It seemed like a reasonable approach to me and their sons responded well.
 
Rico_S said:
I have daughters that want to put a little fun color in their hair for summer—like a blue or green streak, or dye the ends red. Something along those lines. I have seen others do it. 8 years ago, I can say without a doubt my answer would have been an emphatic no! But now, I really don’t have a problem with it and see it as more or less harmless.

So…would you let your kids do it?

FWIW…their ages range from 4th grade----> highschool. All attend catholic schools, are excellent students, and are generally good kids.
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4th grade - No. HS - Yes. Except if it’s a unity/team/charity thing, then I’d let them all go for it.

In general, I like to set up limits that I can remove as they age. I remove the limits on hair as a “gift” when they become a HS freshman. Lip gloss is 6th grade. Pierced ears is 5th grade, etc. It works because it gradually turns over control and responsibility to them and gives them a format where they know I recognize their growing maturity, their personal style and reward good behavior.
 
Go ahead. Make sure you get pictures to show your grand kids how mom looked like back in the day!🙂
 
An older parent once told me: illegal? immoral? unethical?

If not, it’s just a fad. And parents should ignore it, and let nature run its course.

Go for it.
 
If your kid looks like a smurf, what does that make you? Papa Smurf!
 
It seems harmless enough on its own, but looking back on my own life, my impulses to get pierced and dye my hair and wear funny clothes were basically a cry for help, low self esteem, rebelliousness and dissatisfaction with life. My parents were very supportive of the kinds of things I wanted to do, to a point anyway. I grew my hair all in front of my face and spent an hour doing it every morning before school. I got in so much trouble from school for the way my hair was, and yet my parents supported me. Frankly they should have yielded to the authority of the school in this matter. I was out of control. In the years to come I would lose my faith entirely, get two girls pregnant in a row, cohabitate with even more, plow through job after job, and ultimately become homeless and destitute, all the while plagued by atheism and bipolar disorder.

Dyed hair in itself is not a problem, but I would regard it as a harbinger of things to come. I think children should learn the values of conformity and obedience and proper appearance, modesty and hygiene, and letting them do whatever with their hair may not be the way to go. You will not win any wars by preventing them from doing something like this, but Rome was not built in a day. On the other hand, if you trust your child, and you think that this will teach them a valuable lesson in that they will find out how people react and regard them as freaks, go for it and let them do it. Kind of like letting your kid get hurt so they know how it feels the next time.
 
PaleoConCatlick said:
An older parent once told me: illegal? immoral? unethical?

If not, it’s just a fad. And parents should ignore it, and let nature run its course.

Go for it.
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I would feel duty-bound to let them in on a little lesson in fashion history. If you know quite well you are making yourself into a fashion “don’t” and you don’t care, that’s one thing. Nothing illegal, nothing immoral, nothing unethical in merely being embarrassed, no. If no one ever told them that no one will care that everyone was doing it when you show up ten or twenty years from now in pictures looking like a goof, though, I don’t know. That doesn’t seem very nice.
 
EasterJoy said:
I would feel duty-bound to let them in on a little lesson in fashion history. If you know quite well you are making yourself into a fashion “don’t” and you don’t care, that’s one thing. Nothing illegal, nothing immoral, nothing unethical in merely being embarrassed, no. If no one ever told them that no one will care that everyone was doing it when you show up ten or twenty years from now in pictures looking like a goof, though, I don’t know. That doesn’t seem very nice.
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I wish I had pics from when I did it in high school. And I’m not embarrassed by it as I do it now. It’s fun and looks pretty. Mine is done professionally so it might look different than what you are imagining; many people think it’s the lighting at first.
 
Bruised_Reed said:
I wish I had pics from when I did it in high school. And I’m not embarrassed by it as I do it now. It’s fun and looks pretty. Mine is done professionally so it might look different than what you are imagining; many people think it’s the lighting at first.
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Point well-taken. We have an altar server who puts just a hint of red on the ends of her black hair. The effect is gradual and subtle, not stark. It looks professionally done, and it is nice. No, the stuff I’m thinking of looks like something you’d get when some children were left alone with Jello or Kool Aid and too much time on their hands. (OK, to me it looks like a prank that someone pulled on them, or maybe as if they’re going through a hazing, but that’s probably just me.)
 
CradleJourney said:
4th grade - No. HS - Yes. Except if it’s a unity/team/charity thing, then I’d let them all go for it.

In general, I like to set up limits that I can remove as they age. I remove the limits on hair as a “gift” when they become a HS freshman. Lip gloss is 6th grade. Pierced ears is 5th grade, etc. It works because it gradually turns over control and responsibility to them and gives them a format where they know I recognize their growing maturity, their personal style and reward good behavior.
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This is a good plan. It rewards them with something that you might allow anyway, and helps them to feel they are growing up and earning the privileges.

👍
 
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