Beauty Salons for children...child's play or premature sexualisation!?

The Independent carries a story today about a Beauty Salon in Essex UK that is specifically for the Under 13 year old market and there has been quite a reaction to it so far http://ind.pn/kDNaqH

Now I'm going to be very clear on my position on this one...I do NOT approve of bringing young children to a Beauty Salon to have Manicure/Pedicures/Facials/Spray Tans or any other beauty treatment (for an extra cost this salon will also provide your child with a photographer to follow them around...so is fame now also an entitlement that is closely alligned with beauty and nothing to do with achievement!?!?!).

I've heard both sides of the arguments about how it's just child's play and children play Mummy's and Daddy's and other adult roles involving hair and make-up all the time, that it is good for them.  Yes this is true and this is good for them, however, a child role playing the roles they see their parents doing and using their imaginations to enact the experience as they see and understand it is quite separate to the experience of being brought to a salon where a professional is attending to their grooming as though they actually were adults...this is not a subtle difference, this is in fact a screamingly obvious difference!

Children are growing up in an increasingly image obsessed society where the onus is on how you look as opposed to what you do.  Parents should be focused on empowering their children to feel beautiful from the inside and to behave and act in a beautiful way towards themselves and others...this is enough "beauty" for any child to be concerned with.  Beauty Salons are an adult experience and we should not tolerate attempts to force our children to lose their already too short and too precious childhoods.

I fully accept (& have witnessed) how little girls and boys are fascinated with watching their mothers engage in their beauty regime, apply make-up, paint their nails.  This should not be confused with a fascination with beauty and make-up alone, this is a child's fascination with watching their Mother's and idealising their Mother's routines...this fascination is as much about the child's preoccupation with their Mum's as it is about any preoccupation with Make-Up.  To introduce your child to a salon of this kind at such a young age is to expose and immerse them in an adult world at a premature stage, it takes away any aspect of creativity and imagination that is fundamental to this kind of role play and Role Play is an essential stage of any child's Developmental Play experience.

NOTE: See my Blog on the 3 Stages of Developmental Play - EPR

All children,not just little girls, need to engage in fantasy and role play, they must be allowed to use their imaginations to express how they are experiencing their world and the people in their world, this is fundamental to their growth and development.

So, it's a yes to dressing up in Mum's high heels and dressing gown while role playing being an adult and it is a very big NO to eliminating imagination and actually having your child experience life as an adult prematurely.  Parents must trust their own instincts on this and not allow the normalisation of such practices in society to make us feel like prudes when we tell our children that they are too young for a Manicure!

You can find out more about Solamh - Parent Child Relationship Clinic and the work we do on www.solamh.com