"You Did What?"

Surprise! Your Child…

…got her hair out of her face—with scissors.

What you should do: Head to a salon, as opposed to trying to fix it yourself. “Kids always seem to cut their hair in the worst places—right on the hairline,” says Paula Ivins Kingston, a mother of four and the owner of the Lucid Salon, in Lebanon, Ohio. If the piece is small, you may get away with pulling it back with a barrette or a headband (try giddygiddy.com for some cute options), but more likely you’ll have to embrace a shorter cut. “Ask the stylist to cut a pixie or a cool, layered shag to blend in the piece the child chopped off,” says Ivins Kingston.

Resist the urge to: Become hysterical at the loss of her curls. If you overreact, so will your child, and it’s hard to get a scared child to sit still in a salon chair. “Kids usually don’t know that hair doesn’t grow back right away,” says Ivins Kingston. The shock of learning that is sometimes punishment enough.