A mom-of-four has shared footage of her husband’s reaction to the moment they discovered their 6-year-old daughter had given herself a haircut.
Taylor Hohman from Texas posted the indoor security camera footage to her TikTok, tayyybeeee, of what she described as their “biggest gentle parenting test yet.”
Gentle parenting is all about showing understanding, empathy and respect to children, rather than a more traditional, authoritative stance.
U.S. parents appear divided on which is the more effective, with a 2023 YouGov survey of 1,000 Americans finding that the majority who are currently parents of at least one child under 18 use either an authoritative or a gentle parenting style (51 percent each).
Hohman’s video is a good advertisement for the latter. It shows their daughter, who is pixelated out of the video, emerging from her bedroom having cut off most of the hair from the front of her head.
“She cut it herself with her school scissors after we all went to bed for the night,” Hohman said. “She said she was trying to give herself bangs but messed up and then tried to fix them.”
Hohman can be heard talking to her daughter on the clip while her husband steps away, understandably shocked at what has happened.
“My first reaction was honestly just a loss of words and followed by wanting to yell at her. She didn’t know it then but we were leaving for a surprise Disney trip in just 30 days!” Hohman said.
Though her daughter’s actions were shocking and made her mom furious in the context, she didn’t yell or scold her for what had happened.
“As soon as I saw her face and I could tell she knew she messed up, I couldn’t bring myself to do anything other than hug her,” she said.
Her husband’s stunned reaction, while hilarious, showed a similar level of control. He quickly gets up from the couch and walks over to toward where the camera is.
His head is in his hands and he’s clearly not sure how to react. While that’s amusing and, no doubt, relatable to many parents, what’s key to note is that he never yells at his daughter for what’s happened.
Instead, he takes a breath, lets her talk to her mom and gets on with life. That’s pretty much what they did in the aftermath of what happened.
“Once it was done the hardest part was figuring out how to navigate public outings and peers because it wasn’t salvageable,” Hohman said. “We bought so many headbands and wigs and that made it tolerable for us all.”
What made the stress of the situation more bearable though was how their daughter felt over the many months it took for her hair to grow back.
“She was so confident through every phase of growing it out,” Hohman said. “I really think it’s because we didn’t over react and tear her down over it, which I am so thankful for because it’s just hair!”
A year on, Hohman decided to share the video because it feels like her family are “all finally healed from the experience.”
When it comes to dealing with stressful situations like this, Hohman’s advice as a parent is simple: “take a breath.”
“How we react to little insignificant ‘mistakes’ they make as children will set the tone for the bigger mistakes they will inevitably make as teenagers,” she said. “I want our children to know they can come to us when they mess up and that we won’t over react!”
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