Cut Your Child's Hair Yourself

I have a large family, which includes six sons. In the beginning, when there were just one or two boys, I enjoyed taking them to the barbershop for trendy haircuts. But as my family grew, becoming more frugal was a necessity, not to mention the stress of taking my large brood to a barber shop and trying to keep track of each child in the different barber's chairs.

After one such trip, where I laid down a good fifty dollars for haircuts, I decided the time had come for me to start cutting my children's hair myself. I went to Walmart and bought a pair of good clippers - which paid for themselves with the first batch of haircuts. I just buzzed the boy's hair in the beginning - a short burr for the summertime, and a longer burr for the winter.

But as time went on I got braver and decided to try a traditional boy's haircut, which wasn't near as hard as I thought it would be.

For the first try, I used a longer guard so I would have wiggle room if I messed up. Now that I have the hang of it, I use a ½ or ¼ inch guard for the bottom part of their hair, leaving the top part in the shape of a shallow bowl on top of their hair to cut by hand. Once the bottom half is cut to my satisfaction, I use the "blender" guard to cut around their ears. These will usually say whether they are for the right or left ear. Then I take off the guard and shave the back of the neck, and even up the hair line.

Now that the bottom is done, it's time to trim the top with a pair of scissors. Make sure your scissors are sharp so you will do a good job.

I run my fingers into their hair, and cut off any hair that sticks up between my fingers. If you want the top a little longer, then cut a little higher, but for my sons, I find that the tops of my fingers is just about right. I run my fingers through from front to back, from back to front, from left to right and from right to left, continually cutting off anything that comes up between my fingers. Do this over and over until you are sure you've gotten the top nice and evenly layered in all directions. You'll want to blend the bottom and top together, holding the hair out and cutting at an angle as you cut the top, or flipping the clippers as you cut the bottom.

Now stop and look at the haircut. Even it up where ever needed. Take your hand and ruffle it, then comb it a few times to make sure you haven't missed anything.

If you mess up too badly, you can always resort to the burr cut again. But most likely, you will be pleased with this simple cut, and you will have saved fifteen or twenty dollars to buy something for yourself!