Care of African American Children in Transracial Adoptions: When You need a Stylist

by Andrea Hermitt | More from this Blogger

30 Jan 2007 05:21 AM

Previously, In this series of articles on care of African American children in transracial adoptions, I have discussed winter skincare, summer skincare, and basic hair care. I am not discussing advanced hair care problems for African American children. Mixed raced hair care, and care of long hair were discussed in a previous article.

While caring for the hair of your African American child can be binding experience, there will be a time when you should call a stylist.

Hair Problems: Sometimes in spite of doing everything by the book, your child will still have problems with their hair. These problems normally involve excessive hair loss or breakage. These problems can be due to stress, the child could have come to you with damaged hair, or the child doing his or her own hair could cause problems. Get referrals from people who tend to have well coifed hair. Take your child to a stylist as soon as you notice excessive hair loss or breakage in order to minimize hair loss. The stylist will treat the hair with special conditioners, make recommendations for home care, and cut the hair if necessary.

Hair Cuts: Cutting African American Hair is not the same as cutting Caucasian hair. Both the tools and techniques are quite different. While you can learn to cut African American hair, you should take your child to a professional until you are experienced enough to do a good job.

Treated Hair: Many African Americans (mostly girls, but also boys) treat their hair with chemicals to make it manageable. The benefits of chemically treated hair on children are questionable. While perming the hair to straighten it will make the comb glide through it easier, it will make the hair more fragile, so you will have to style it carefully, and it can also damage the scalp. Only a professional should apply chemical treatments to African American hair, and only gentle treatments should be used on children. Treated hair does not revert to natural, and once treated you have to continue to treat or go through a long growing out process and eventually cut off all the treated hair.

Natural Hair Styles: When referring to natural hair, I mean keeping hair in the state that it grows from the scalp. While natural hair is relatively easy to care for using basic techniques, there are still times when you will want to hire a stylist.

Beware of letting your neighbor braid your child's hair. Many people know how to braid, but do it too tightly. This pulls out hair along the hairline, and makes it difficult for the child to sleep and even function for a couple of days. When choosing someone to braid your child's hair, ask to see the hair of someone else whose hair they braided. Do not be afraid of insulting someone by hiring another braider. Remember the wrong person can cause your child a lot of pain.

Dread locking: Do not try this at home. Locking the hair is a lot more complicated than ceasing to comb the hair and allowing it to mat in chunks and pieces. To lock the hair in a style that is attractive and suitable to the child, find a loctician or stylist who specializes in natural hair. Like chemically treating hair, dreadlocks are also permanent. Once the hair has locked, the only way to change it is to cut it off.

In any case, always interview stylists as having healthy and attractive hair will make your child feel good about him or herself.

Andrea Hermitt is a Homeschool Blogger. Read more of her blogs here.

Learn more about Andrea Hermitt

Andrea Hermitt is a native New Yorker currently residing in GA. She has been married for over 16 years and has two teenage children.

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Fatherofeight (2475) 31 Jan 2007 09:42 AM

Andrea, as I have said several times, I am learning to appreciate you and your insight very much. This helps me also. I know that I am "preaching to the choir" with this comment, but it really miffed me when we sat in the hair stylist place and they had 6 or 7 large books full of pictures of models with specific haircuts, so our child could look through the book and pick out a haircut, guess what, not one picture of an African American child, so I had to explain to Matthew Walter that we needed to find another place to go, which we have done. Our new African American stylist is wonderful, she takes good care of him, she explains everything to Nancy and me, and she doesn't mind writing down the names of products (that we have never heard of) and telling us exactly where we can go to find them. Her shop costs more but it is worth it.

Andrea Hermitt (5507) 31 Jan 2007 10:57 AM

No need to get miffed Ed, They did you a favor! The biggest mistake you could make was to let a shop that does not specialize in African American hair do your children's hair.

When I was in college I naively went to a regular shop for extensions and they took my hard earned money and used all the wrong products and techniques on my hair. It was a mess! Hairstylists are probably the only are where I actually discriminate! African Americans (with a few exceptions) are better at styling African American hair!

melodyes_song (80) 04 Feb 2007 09:50 AM

Our boys are mixed race, and we are trying to figure out how to keep their hair from looking fuzzy, if that makes sense...what I am reading is not making much sense...we do use a combo shampoo/conditioner on their hair as well as just for me 2 in 1 detangler conditioner, do we need to put something else on their hair..they both have loose curls...reading your blogs I am trying to figure out how to not damage their hair...

Andrea Hermitt (5507) 04 Feb 2007 01:05 PM

African American hair is fuzzy by nature. If the amount of "fuzz" seems to be more than other African American Kids, then you need a hair oil/pomade/grease. Look in the black hair care section of the grocery store.

melodyes_song (80) 04 Feb 2007 02:17 PM

ok i will look for the oil, I think it maybe that it looks so dry. Do we need to put oil/conditioner on the boys hair daily?

Andrea Hermitt (5507) 04 Feb 2007 04:10 PM

It needs to be put on the hair after each wash, and whenever it looks dry, (it will also feel brittle (like damaged ends feel)

melodyes_song (80) 04 Feb 2007 08:29 PM

Thanks Andrea...the skin blogs help bunches too.