All three of my dc's have ginger hair which they have inherited from me although I have been a bottle blonde since I was old enough to dye my hair.
I have always told them (along with many others) how beautiful their hair is and how lucky they are have the colouring that they have. I have tried really hard not to project how I always felt about my hair (I hated having ginger hair) onto them and when they have asked why my hair is a different colour I told them that I fancied a change and got used to it being blonde so kept it that way.
Dd is 11 and has just started secondary school. She is much fairer then me and her brothers, we have dark eyes, eyelashes and eyebrows and she has gorgeous blue eyes, ginger lashes and almost white eyebrows. She has not liked the colour if her hair for years now and has felt self conscious about her lashes and brows for a couple of years to the point where she has been pestering me to get them tinted. I have always said no they are lovely, don't be silly.
She has come home from school today pleading with me to let her dye her hair brown. She keeps having lots of other pupils shouting names at her about her hair, it seems to be quite a fashionable thing to bully redheads at her school she says and the name calling is by lots of different children.
The thing is I know that if she was happy with her colouring then she would ignore these kids but she hates it and thinks the whole problem will just go away if she dyes it. That she will be happier in herself and that the name calling would stop. I felt the same growing up and I would have felt much happier in my own skin if I'd have coloured mine earlier although I have NEVER shown this to dd in any way.
BUT I really don't want her to dye it, she's so pretty and it really suits her. AIBU?