Curly hair

"AAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!"  *PitterPatter* *PitterPatter*  "no!  No!  NO!"  *slience* 
*muffled from under the cushions on the sofa*  "Mummy.  NO!  Please mummy, not my haaaair" 

How many people are serenaded every morning with the 'don't wanna brish my hair cuz it hurts' song?  And if the hair is curly it is worse!  Last weekend one of my youth group said she wanted my daughters hair.  I simply asked her if she liked her hair being brushed.  She said '"well only if i do it myself.  It hurts when other people do it."  I smiled and said "Now do you wish you had E's hair?"  She shook her head.  E has not got terribly curly hair, in fact, considering her african genes you could expect it to be tighter curls than she has!  So I am blessed. 

Detangle Sprays:
We have tried detangle sprays.  The one we use these days is the tea tree based one which we use religiously before and after nursery and gymnastics as the tea tree is apparently a great preventative of nits and lice.  We comb it daily with the smallest comb we can bear to which is now a fine tooth adult comb.  We do brush it daily and when it is knotty she counts to ten.  But the detangle spray itself tends to only work as well as water. 

Coutning to ten:
For me this is a great way to get loads of hard brushing done fast and a beautiful head of hair without causing excessive pain for my child.  She is firstly concentrating on counting, so is distracted slightly from any possible pain.  (In her case a lot of it is imagined because her head was washed and brushed by a baby sitter sometime and they were nasty!  Be careful that such people do not step over the bounds of their remit - or their children!  Ours was a 15 yr old wannabe hairdresser - heaven forbid.) 

To my knowledge I have never really hurt her, one of the reasons I can get her to let me do it.  Once she gets to ten I stop - even if it is not finished.  Then we try again later on.  Unless we are going out right away.  Then she counts again and I concentrate on the last little bit, and if I finish early we dance and clap cuz we didnt have to go all the way to ten.  Or I count the rest of it with her.

Being so young ten takes a long time to get to.  She doesnt yet know the art of  "one, two miss a few..." or of even counting quickly so it gets over quicker. 

Using my hands:
I have always fiddled with her hair and one of the easiest ways to get big knotty clumps out is to fiddle with them and work them loose.  It just takes a cuddle and a story to be happening at the same time, and as long as you are gentle and dont pull the technique works incredibly well. 

Finally:
Regular hair cuts.  Keep it short and it is less tangle able and waiting to happen.  And so quicker and easier for the impatient parent (if you are anything like me) to get out.  (I always leave it to the last minute and there is someone at the door waiting to take us, or we are due somewhere and still standing in the hallway doing her hair.  Well not any more!  Not for the past 6 months in fact. 

Peace
EF.x