People talk about identity like it begins with grand displays or gestures—names, flags, pronouns, rewritten pasts. But for NeuroSpicey kids, it doesn’t start with what they can name. It starts in the body. In sensory safety. In being allowed to exist without apology. It starts, sometimes, with hair.
That morning, I was just trying to get my son into the shower.
Then I saw it: a knot the size of a golf ball. Not just tangled—woven. A tight, silent storm of friction and time and sensory chaos. My gut dropped. His hair, his long, beautiful hair, has been part of how he sees himself for years. Cutting it would have felt like cutting through something sacred. I almost cried from what might need to be done.
But I wasn’t going to panic. I wasn’t going to let frustration take the wheel.
He stepped into the water, and I stepped into presence.
Conditioner. Bag. Time. Research. I learned about porosity, frizz, moisture loss, and how some ingredients soothe while others inflame. I built a plan. And then I got to work, slow, careful, intentional. He played with his waffle blocks while I moved strand by strand, breathing alongside him. We exchanged hair puns, that my daughter said “We’re Knot funny.”
My son has high porosity hair, it absorbs moisture as fast as it looses it. Its wavy, it tangles if not met with a routine and care plan that matches not only his hair chemistry, but how processes the world.
And yeah, I had to make two small snips. Maybe ten strands total, an inch and a half, tucked into the end of his hair. You can’t even see it. His hair remains intact. He was smiling by the end. And that’s what matters most.
But that knot? It became more than a hair emergency. It became a ritual. A rite. A pause in the chaos where I could show him: you’re not too much for me.
Because I didn’t just fix it.. I built a world we could both live in. I turned the routine into a rhythm. We gave everything names. The detangler became “slip potion.” His towel is “armor.” He gets XP for bravery during comb-outs. We talk through each step before we do it. No surprises. No sudden shifts. I designed the process not just for his hair, but for his nervous system. For his inner language. For him.
And it worked because I’ve been doing my own work, too.
Through reclaiming my identity, I’ve started turning moments that used to overwhelm me into moments of reverence. I’ve learned to respond instead of react. I pause. I breathe. I don’t rush in with control; I show up with steadiness. And in that shift, I’ve found something I didn’t even know I was searching for: the kind of father I needed when I was younger. One who doesn’t need his child to make sense to love him fully.
Because that’s the truth of it, this isn’t just about hair.
It’s about trust. Autonomy. The dignity of expression. For neurodivergent kids, identity isn’t just about what they love—it’s about what keeps them whole. What reflects them back to themselves when the world frays their edges.
His hair is part of that.
And now, he knows his dad doesn’t just tolerate who he is—I protect who he is. I learn his language. I adapt. I stay when it’s hard. I honor the strands of his selfhood, even when they tangle.
If identity really matters, then we have to show up not just when it’s easy, but when it’s textured, when it’s sensory, when it’s silent and sacred and small.
I didn’t save every strand.
But I saved the story.
And my son? He knows he is loved, loudly, quietly, and without condition. Just a little extra conditioner.”
There were no tears shed today that didn’t come from laughter. Tonight, after the kids go to bed, I’m going to look into how to braid hair for their hair styles. Maybe I’ll see if I can find a wig and practice on it. One thing I know for sure, I have to brush up on my hair puns.
One strand at a time
What if this is how we showed up to people? Not just our kids. But partners. Friends. Strangers. Ourselves. What if we treated someone’s internal knot the way I treated that chunk of hair, “knot” as a problem, but as something worthy of patience, presence, and time?
It took me two hours. And yeah, I’ll tout that. Two hours on one knot. Some might call it a waste. But what I learned, what we built, in those quiet hours? It’s worth more than anything else I could’ve been doing.
And I didn’t even realize that until just now.
Because I didn’t just detangle my son’s hair, I detangled his nervous system.
I held space for a moment that could’ve become trauma, and instead turned it into a memory of safety, care, and identity.
That is trauma-informed parenting in action.
That is neurodiversity-affirming love.
That is what generational healing looks like.
I didn’t fix hair. I built trust.
I didn’t brush knots… I met my son’s whole self, exactly where he was, and told him:
“You’re safe here. You’re not too much. I won’t cut away the parts of you that don’t make sense to the world.”
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