He is beautiful <3 I met a guy on his 16th birthday who had dreads to his bum. His dreads were 13.

I'm sure everyone's been waiting to hear my response. Or they're gotten annoyed with it by now.

But here it goes:

Children do no have the cognitive ability to make true choices until they are about 10. They can "want" something, or at least say they want something, but the reasoning isn't truly there yet.

So if you want to lock your sons hair for yourself, remember that you aren't doing it for them. He won't understand the process as it goes along. He may not argue with it. And he may even be excited by it. But he won't be able to fully understand the changes that his hair is making over the weeks/months.

Some kids have cognitive abilities a little earlier than others. But 10 is the normal age it starts happening. Only you know for sure if it happens sooner. I can't be that judge,especiallynot online.

All that said, remember, you may think it's cute. Your friends may thinks it's cute. But when he starts to go to school, the other kids may not. And kids can be very mean to something they don't like, isn't normal, and they don't see all the time. If your son isn't eased into being able to handle criticism, he may not be able to handle how kids react to his hair. And then all that time you spent letting it knot up will be for nothing, since he may want to cut them off. If he wants to, let him. Don't try and get him to suck it up and deal with other kids. The problem of them making fun won't go away for years. And middle school can be the most mentally straining age.

And that's only what will happen directly to him. You can't discount that other parents, teachers, principals, and just the random guy on the street won't stare at your, judge you, and might even make a crack or to. You might be emotionally strong enough to take it. but when it's about your kid, things might change. The same advice goes. Try and ignore it. It's just people being ignorant. But that doesn't mean it won't hurt, or eat at you. If it does, you have to make the call if it's worth it.

So in the end, locking your child's hair has nothing to do with the kid. It's how you want the kid to appear. The same goes with how you dress them, and how you cut/style their hair.

We more than likely at that point would just cut them off and start over rather than brush them out, we rarely brush his hair anyways! he has little dreadies a good share of the time, but like my hair it only rats up in the back with out the proper help. But Imma keep doing what Im doing I think for now, and just let it do what its gonna do! and when the time is right, we will make the ultimate decision with each other <3

Yeah, I think wait until he's old enough for it not to be a novelty thing, if that makes sense. It's a long, annoying process to comb out dreads so although the sooner the better if it's what he wants, I don't think there's any harm in waiting until he really understands. Glad you don't care about those opinions though, it's not even worth it.

Thank you My son is old enough to understand when I ask him things, and he knows what dreads are cuz I talk about them and let him play with them all the time, and I ask him if he wants hair like mommies and he says yes xD but I still want to wait I think until he is old enough to REALLY understand. Not to mention everyone around me would judge me for "doing that" to my child... I honestly don't care about others' opinions but I don't care for the extra drama from family.

Same, I think kids with dreads are beautiful, probably because they've been exposed to this amazing journey at such a young age that I think they can appreciate it more. I recently saw a kid whose hair has never been cut, and his hair started naturally dreading when he was one year old, and he's like...six...now. I think it's important to respect what the child wants though, so it's a balance between your own preferences and beliefs, without compromising the kid's own preferences. I'm sure the vast majority of parents don't ignore their kids' desires though lol.

i know hundreds of kids with dreads and dozens that dreaded from birth

i supose reasoning plays a part if u dreaded fpr religios or spiritual reasons and want to influence your child to be spiritual or religios then from births fine (in my opion as long as its not forced on them and when old en9ugh to choose they have the option to not haqve dreads or follow the beliefs)