Am I wrong for thinking about a relaxer for my 10 year old
Y’all, I feel so defeated right now. My daughter is 10 and her hair is so tightly coiled that it’s extremely difficult to manage. I’m constantly using water, oils, leave in conditioner, deep conditioner, grease, and nothing seems to help.
The only way I can even wash her hair is by sectioning it off into small parts as gently as possible, which still hurts her. I detangle each section with a brush and a wide tooth comb, then braid it. I have to repeat that process all over her head just to get through it. After that, I take each braid down one by one and blow dry it. The whole process takes about 6 to 8 hours.
She’s had about five silk presses from three different natural hair professionals, and honestly, it’s painful to watch what she goes through just to get from the wash to the blow drying stage. She’s so shy that she won’t say anything herself, but she’ll text me that it hurts and ask me to do something. And the worst part is the silk press only lasts one day. After a few hours it starts reverting, and by the next day it’s frizzy and puffy, so she ends up putting it in a ponytail anyway.
My 12 year old was told she has 4C hair, but it doesn’t even feel like it because it’s so much easier to manage. I can detangle it without much trouble, and a silk press lasts over a month on her.
I feel like I’m at a crossroads and don’t know what to do. My younger daughter really wants to wear her hair down, so we’ve been doing box braids. Honestly, the easiest method right now is taking down the braids, washing, detangling, and then blow drying it again section by section.
And even after I finish blow drying her whole head, it starts to curl back up, so I have to keep going over sections again just to get through it.
At this point, my mom thinks I should just use a straightener on her hair, and I hate to say it, but I’m starting to agree.
Has anyone dealt with this type of hair texture before?