Hairstylist Sits on the Floor to Cut Autistic Boy’s Hair, Goes Viral
When is a haircut not just a haircut? Let the mother of an autistic son explain.
Recently, Jennifer McCafferty posted a photo on Facebook of her son, Isaiah, getting his haircut at a local SportsClips franchise by a stylist named Kaylen. The haircut itself wasn’t the remarkable part — it’s what it represented.
“This woman, Kaylen, at Sports Clips in Charleston did more for my heart than she will probably ever realize,” McCafferty writes in her post. “Haircuts with Isaiah are no small feat. He hates having anything near his ears, the sound of clippers sends him in to a tailspin…this evening was no different. I was ready to give up, but she wasn’t. She sat on the floor with my baby in her lap, and she cut his hair. They talked about Dory and Christmas, and she even let him spray her with her water bottle. Autism can be so very, very hard, but people like this make our days just a little easier.”
As McCafferty explains to Yahoo Beauty, Isaiah is, in more ways than not, your average 4-year-old little boy: He loves Mickey Mouse, dinosaurs, and PJ Masks, and he adores his big brother, Alex. But, as McCafferty notes in her Facebook post, Isaiah is also on the autism spectrum, having been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder one year ago.
“Most of Isaiah’s quirks revolve around his senses. He has a hard time with sudden loud noises, like the buzzer at his brother’s basketball games. He also has trouble with textures, so he has a very limited diet,” McCafferty says. “There are so many misperceptions when it comes to autism, I honestly don’t know where to start. People often assume that you can take these children, or even adults really, and box them into this one tiny space where they are all expected to look and act the same, and that’s not how it works. Autism is a spectrum disorder. Some individuals on the spectrum are extremely high functioning, and others are not. Isaiah is verbal, and even that throws a lot of people off. Autism makes you unique, but it doesn’t make you less.”
Which is why Isaiah’s haircut with Kaylen was so remarkable.
As McCafferty explains, “He does pretty well in the salon, right up until it is time to sit in the chair. This particular haircut started much the same way. We’ve been lucky [with haircuts in the past], and have mostly experienced kind stylists who have honestly tried with him. However, we’ve never had anyone as patient as Kaylen. This was her first time cutting his hair. I let her know before Isaiah sat down that he has ASD, and she simply smiled and said ‘OK.’”
But then Isaiah began to get upset and began to scream, as is usually the case when he gets a haircut.
“When Isaiah has a meltdown his screams surround you. You know that there is a whole world moving around you, but his screams are all you hear,” she says. “He needs you to focus every ounce of attention you have on him. He needs to find his quiet, safe space, and he needs you to bring him there. Kaylen did that. She wasn’t fazed by his screams, she understood his fears. She figured out where it was he needed to go, and she took him there. She let him take a break when he needed one, and she didn’t give up.”
McCafferty continues, “It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed, to want to walk away. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she would have, because it can be hard, but she didn’t. She did something that she absolutely didn’t have to do. I can’t explain what that means to the mother of a child with special needs, but I can tell you that her kindness healed a piece of my heart that’s been broken since February.”
McCafferty sent Kaylen flowers the very next day, and the two have begun corresponding regularly on Facebook since Isaiah’s remarkable, and remarkably successful, haircut with her — and since McCafferty’s post about Kaylen’s amazing empathy and graciousness went viral. To date, over 27,000 people have shared her post, and over 95,000 people have liked it.
“The world is truly a better place for having Kaylen in it,” McCafferty concludes about what she took from the experience — and what she hopes others who have seen her post will learn from it. “Kindness is free, and so is love. That’s what I hope people take from this.”
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