{"id":4311,"date":"2015-02-06T15:23:21","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T15:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=4311"},"modified":"2015-02-06T15:26:28","modified_gmt":"2015-02-06T15:26:28","slug":"meet-the-barber-who-disciplines-kids-with-an-old-man-haircut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=4311","title":{"rendered":"Meet the barber who disciplines kids with an ‘old man’ haircut"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"barber\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Russell Fredrick shaves naughty children\u2019s hair into a \u2018Benjamin Button Special\u2019 to teach them a lesson. His phone hasn\u2019t stopped ringing since he shared the punishment online, he says<\/p>\n

Parents of misbehaving children are commonly advised to fit the punishment to the crime. For example, if your child daubs black paint on your white walls, don\u2019t deprive them of cake: appoint them cleaning monitor. According to this logic, I can see where Russell Fredrick, a barber from Snellville, Georgia, is coming from with his \u201cBenjamin Button Specials\u201d. This particular haircut involves shaving the crown of a child who thinks they know it all, and leaving the sides long. It\u2019s a tonsorial representation of precocity. Fredrick is community-minded, so he is offering these cuts to local parents free of charge. He also gives free haircuts \u2013 in a different style \u2013 to kids who get A grades.<\/p>\n

Since Fredrick posted the pictures of a cut in progress on Instagram<\/a>, along with the text, \u201cSo you wana act grown…well now you can look grown too\u201d, the phone in A-1 Kutz, his salon, has barely paused for breath. \u201cI\u2019ve had people calling from Australia, the UK, Canada, all over the US.\u201d<\/p>\n

All wanting haircuts?<\/p>\n

\u201cInterviews.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ah. And how many haircuts?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one has actually come in for one. People are shy about being on camera,\u201d Fredrick says. Though a woman did call last night about her 14-year-old son.<\/p>\n

According to the Washington Post<\/a>, Fredrick applied the Benjamin Button style to his own son, Rushann. Untrue, says Fredrick. \u201cI shaved his head completely bald and said if he didn\u2019t improve the behaviour, he\u2019d get the cut. The fear of getting it was enough for him.\u201d Rushann\u2019s grades \u201cskyrocketed\u201d and his current hairstyle makes him look about 12, which, as a 12-year-old, he must find a relief.<\/p>\n

\"<\/a>
The inspiration for the cut: a still from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Photograph: Paramount Pictures\/Allstar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Other children have been less fortunate. One parent took her son to A1 Kutz \u201cto teach him a lesson\u201d. Surely a child who is unruly enough to merit a Benjamin Button would run out the salon, or maybe try to flood it from the hairwash basin?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. He took it in his stride,\u201d says Fredrick. \u201cHe was cool. He started calling himself Old Man Jenkins and he didn\u2019t get teased at school. Five days later his hair had grown back and I gave him a regular cut.\u201d<\/p>\n

Told like this, the Benjamin Button sounds like a positive experience. I have felt underpowered on the discipline front recently (did I mention the black paint?). So, does the Benjamin Button work on long-haired girls?<\/p>\n

Fredrick sounds horrified. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t do it to girls. It would be too cruel.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the cut is<\/em> cruel, isn\u2019t it? \u201cI think this guy\u2019s taking a big risk,\u201d says British behavioural specialist Lorrine Marer<\/a>. \u201cIf I had done that with my kids, they\u2019d have gone to the barbers, had it all shaved off and come back with a bald head.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also suspects the cut might provoke bullying. \u201cFunny though it is, it\u2019s only funny because we\u2019re adults looking at it. Children remember humiliation. If you make that child stand out, he\u2019s going to be angry and resentful and any hope you have of creating a good relationship will go down the toilet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fredrick has three children, aged 10, 12 and 13. He has tried other forms of discipline with mixed results. What else can he do?<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a child is behaving badly,\u201d replies Marer, \u201cdon\u2019t punish the child, teach the parent.\u201d<\/p>\n

I put this idea to Fredrick. \u201cI\u2019m getting a lot of flak from parents that don\u2019t approve of it, or even just people that don\u2019t approve of it,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I was a child, I got hit with a belt. Whuppers. The way the law is over here, we really can\u2019t do that any more as a form of discipline. You have to do something to reach these kids before law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fredrick is 34. Does he have happy memories of his childhood in Atlanta? \u201cYes, yes, yes, yes,\u201d he says. \u201cI love my father and I was raised by my father. He taught me right from wrong. I got my life together.\u201d Got the shop, he says. Got a family. Got an idea to improve other people\u2019s childhoods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russell Fredrick shaves naughty children\u2019s hair into a \u2018Benjamin Button Special\u2019 to teach them a lesson. His phone hasn\u2019t stopped ringing since he shared the punishment online, he says Parents of misbehaving children are commonly advised to fit the punishment to the crime. For example, if your child daubs black paint on your white walls, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/barber.jpeg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-17x","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4311"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4315,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4311\/revisions\/4315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}