My 10yr old cut her unibrow because her “friends” made fun

[MomRose12]

I’m deeply upset and I don’t know what to do. DD (10yrs) cut her unibrow with scissors and kept lying to me saying nothing happened. I was mad at her and she confessed.

I’m home educating DD this year (y6) as I’m on a career break. There was a LOT of girl drama going on in school anyway. She said she’d rather study at home with me. I let her stay in touch with her school “friends” via google hangouts.

There were several instances where she was blamed for something she didn’t do, girls in the group spreading lies about her in school etc so I told her to stay away from them. She however continued to be on google chat with the girls. They’ve made fun of my DD’s unibrow and she cut it! She also cut some bits of her eyebrows (slightly bruised skin there). Her unibrow is very special. It was the first thing I noticed when I saw her the first time. Although her eyebrows are a bit thick, they are gorgeous.

I’m up crying at this hour. I don’t know what to do. Please can someone help ?

Op I’d take her to get her eyebrows sorted out just now and make it clear your only taking her because it’s better a professional tidiest it up. I’d then explain that if she wanted to go to a salon and have it done regularly just to let you know but you’d rather she wanted it because it makes her happy than to make other people happy.

@MrsFoxPlus4:
Thank you. Any specific YouTube videos you’d recommend?

Tidiest? I meant Tidys it up.

@MrsFoxPlus4: that’s exactly my point. Thanks for understanding

Ignore the YouTube video comment they are all excessive!

@MrsFoxPlus4 : ok :)

Well just like you’d take her to get her hair fixed if she chopped it take her to get her brows fixed. But just remind her in future if there’s something she’s truely unhappy about to come to you and if you can fix it or shed light on the situation you will. We all get upset seeing our kids grow up.

I tried to find one that looked decent but most weren’t minimal and the videos of mixraced women they were waxing and removing their baby hairs. We don’t need or want that!

Unfortunately, kids will focus on anything that makes someone different. I suspect after all the trouble that led to your DD being now home schooled she wanted to take back control of something and decided to fix it herself. Bless her! It's now your job to help her make it look nice but try not to make a big deal of it as it doesn't sound like things have been particularly easy lately.

With her homeschooling does she have access to other homeschooled kids? If she does then she'll move away from her old 'friends' eventually. Good luck

@Rememory : thank you

She has access to many other nice friends. Some from school, some from her clubs and a couple of other home schooled kids.
She will be returning to school this September (starting secondary school )

Make sure you take her to a salon that has a multicultural clientele, as MrsFox says up thread you don't want her baby hairs removed, just the thicker hairs in the middle and the stragglers.

I don't know how long you've been home schooling, there may be a little jealousy from the other girls feeling that she is getting special treatment when they have to go to school. Children at this age tend to "hunt in packs", and if your daughter is being denied the opportunity to bond with other kids over shared experiences - school being the number one of these - then you may be setting her up for future difficulties. Will she be starting high school this September or 2020?

MomRose12 I am sad for your daughter. Seriously, she has a unibrow so very prominent that it was the first thing you noticed about her as an infant? And it never occurred to you that it would possibly be an issue for her in time?

So she set out on this lonely unhappy endeavour of ineptly cutting at it, and although her situation was so obvious, your response was to repeatedly question her and then get angry at her for lying? Come on!

Those girls are bitches, of course they are, and your lovely child needs to lose them and find some actual friends. And of course nobody should be bullied into changing anything about themselves, particularly something so superficial and harmless as a few extra hairs. But honestly there's no female on earth, with the exception of the notably eccentric Frida Kahlo, who has relished the fact that her brows meet across her nose. Most males who have this would also prefer not to.

I am very aware of this particular issue as my little sister permanently obliterated and ruined her eyebrows in a self-conscious attempt at fixing them, because our mother was just like you. That makes me so sad.

Tip for the future: facial and body hair is likely to be an issue for your daughter as time goes on - don't leave her to sadly chop at it alone and do not blithely assume she feels she can tell you everything. Especially after her experience on this occasion.

My daughter has a unibrow. She didn't like it so asked me to do something. No one said anything to her...she just knew they were very hairy! I bought those mini facial wax strips and just waxed in between her brows. She was so happy afterwards, she has gorgeous eyebrows. I'm sorry your daughters not having a nice time with her friends.

kids lie when scared of fearful or ashamed or embaressed.especially if this a lie about doing something to themselves.you still shouldn't gotten angry about that.she lied and lied again not over stealing or a crime but over something she had done to herself.what did this tell you.its not the type of "Lie" to be mad about.and you did because she couldn't tell you.but why couldn't she tell you?it must have been extra painful for her not to be able to then doesn't it.

Why on earth would it be a requirement to have a multicultural clientele? What an odd thing to say. They are just eyebrows.

Anyone who waxes or threads eyebrows for a living should be more than capable of understanding a request to remove the correct hairs and leave the rest alone. If it's only the hairs between the brows that need removing then there is no need to touch any fine hairs from beneath or above the brows anyway.

Having said that, if her forehead and eyebrow area is quite hairy generally, then having a very obvious and abrupt bald /smooth patch above her nose will stand out like a sore thumb while the areas around the brows continue to be covered in a fine dark down, so it may look slightly odd.

I think it's best to decide as you go along, and see what looks best. If the fine baby hairs you talk about are very dark and visible now and sit outside of the main brow area then what's the point of keeping them? They are only going to get coarser and thicker with age and it's unlikely that she's going to be heartbroken if they never grow back. The only thing to be careful of at this stage is over-shape the brow in a way that doesn't follow its natural shape.

A white beautician will be perfectly capable of understanding that, although in my experience almost all threading bars are staffed by people of Asian or middle eastern heritage anyway. Threading may be slightly more painful, but it's much more accurate.

@villainousbroodmare I come from a culture where unibrow is considered beautiful.
goo.gl/images/EwRsHL

Yes, it was the first thing I noticed about my beautiful princess. I still find it extremely beautiful. It looks like the pic above, not like a hairy caterpillar !!

But you have chosen to bring her up in a culture where for the the vast majority of people it's considered unattractive. Please remember that.

That's a picture of a beautiful girl but I would notice the in-between eyebrow hair and would want to pluck it. Obviously different cultures see things differently, fair enough, but if your daughter was born and is brought up in the UK, no-one will like it, including her! To be honest, most Asian people I know hate any sort of excess facial hair and do something about it as soon as possible so I'm surprised at what you say.

When you first gaze on your little baby, it's quite natural to think everything is really cute about their appearance, even sticking out ears! I was no different but when they get older, they have to make their own minds up about how they want to look and you are being overly sentimental about your daughter's monobrow. She is no longer a baby.

However for you because you have been upset. I hope you are getting over it now.

She lied about it because she knew how you'd react. My mum was a nightmare for me about this kind of thing. I wasn't allowed to shave my legs so of course used an old bic and butchered my legs and then lied about it as I knew she'd be cross.

Yes, me too.

OP - you are missing the point that she lied because she knew how you would react and/or was embarrassed to admit it to you. That’s your biggest problem here - your DD can’t talk to you - and you need to fix that first. Apologise to your DD, tell her you want to help fix her brows and reassure her she can talk to you about anything and you won’t get mad.

My daughter has a very fair one, she asked me pluck it and I did. I was very conscious of not making a big deal about it.

She may have been embarrassed.

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
Maya Angelou
You beautiful, self conscious daughter feels like her brows are a source of entertainment for others. Just give her back her confidence by taking her to a sympathetic salon. Please also point out you will help her with anything like this in the future, she only has to ask with zero judgement from you. She is being picked on and bullied. She needs your support,

OP this is so wrong on so many counts, but you are incapable of seeing this.
You have repeatedly been told that no one really wants a unibrow, but you still keep going on about how YOU like it.

She probably didn't dislike her unibrow before because she was a small kid and they don't think about stuff like that. I know you say it's sad to change stuff about yourself because of others options but ultimately isn't that behind everything we do to do with style and beauty.

I like my hair but I dye the grey because I know that grey hair isn't ideal and people will judge. I wear makeup so I look better, etc.

I had a mono brow at that age and kids called me werewolf, etc. Let her start having it waxed/threaded.

Your DD is living in Britain, where unibrow is the utter opposite of a desirable feature.

I suspect she will have considerable difficulty in telling you how much she hates it, simply because you are quite tenacious in seeing it otherwise, are determined to 'baby' her (or at least not want her to move away from babyhood) and get upset to a wholly disproportionate extent when you don't get your way.

She wants her unibrow gone. Enough to tackle it herself with inadequate equipment. You really should put her first and act on that very clear message.