If hair washing turns into tears, resistance, or full-blown meltdowns in your house… I’m breaking down what’s really going on beneath the surface when kids struggle with having their hair washed, especially for sensory and neurodivergent kids. Because once you understand why this everyday task feels so overwhelming, everything starts to shift.
We’ll talk about how past experiences, sensory sensitivities, and even hidden systems like the vestibular system can play a bigger role than you might think. And why some kids seem “fine”… until suddenly they’re not.
I’m also sharing 5 simple, practical strategies you can start using right away to make hair washing feel safer, calmer, and more doable for everyone.
If bath time has been a battle, this episode will help you look at it differently—and take the first step toward changing it.
Mentioned in this episode:
How to Decrease Aggressive Behaviors Workshop
Vestibular sensitivity podcast episode
Key Timestamps
00:00 Why hair washing can turn into a meltdown
01:20 What’s really going on (it’s not just behavior)
03:30 The hidden sensory trigger most parents miss
08:00 Strategy #1 that changes everything fast
12:30 Small tweaks that make a big difference
17:10 The step most parents skip (but matters most)
Read the Transcript
Today’s episode of the Connected and Capable podcast is brought to you by the new How to Decrease Aggressive Behaviors workshop coming May 20th. I’m teaching this workshop to help parents and therapists know what the common triggers are, why kids get aggressive, which many kids, especially uniquely wired neurodivergent kids, get aggressive, and a clear plan of exactly what to do that is safe for everyone and that is respectful of the child when aggression rises.
It’s all based on strong current research, and I’m so excited to teach this to you in this two-hour workshop. You can check out the show notes or head to yourkidstable.com to find out more about grabbing a seat on May 20th to this special workshop. The recording will be added afterwards, and if you are a member of the Connection Hive or the Therapist All Access membership, this workshop is included in your membership.
All right. Let’s get started with the show today, which is all about how to help kids that struggle with hair washing. This is a huge challenge for some of our sensory kids and something that they have to do pretty often, right? So today, we’re gonna break down five tips that you can start using now if your kid is losing it when they have to get their hair washed. If they are crying, if they are freaking out, maybe they’re getting aggressive and hitting you and refusing to get their hair washed. Maybe there’s just a lot of big emotions. Maybe they’re in full meltdown mode.
Now, I just wanna explain before we get into these tips briefly what’s going on here. Now, first of all, when kids don’t like hair washing, most of the time this is related to their sensory system, right? These are their sensory needs. We are definitely seeing some sensory sensitivities here. Now, here’s the thing that’s tricky. Once your kid has had a negative experience in the bath, maybe they got soap in their eyes, maybe they felt unsteady, maybe they fell backwards, maybe they even just felt like they gulped in water and it was overwhelming to them.
There could be so many small things that happen in any given minute that they may not articulate to you, and this, this is even true for, for older kids. You know, we see elementary kids even struggling with this activity sometimes, although it does tend to get- Better as kids get more independent and are able to be in control of this activity, so it’s not being done to them. Like, there’s not an adult washing their hair. They’re the ones washing their hair, so they’re kind of able to control where the soap is, where their head position is.
Now, sometimes this is coming up every single time that you have to give your kid a bath because these sensory needs are, are ongoing. Your kid has a sensitivity to touch, so the scrubbing that’s required on the head is so uncomfortable for them pretty much every time you go to wash their hair. Or it might be the smell of the shampoo, or the shampoo getting in their eyes that is so uncomfortable for them and causes them to get very reactive and very on guard.
It’s also possible that they have a vestibular sensitivity. So remember, we’ve talked about vestibular sensitivities a couple of times, but this is our sense of movement, and it’s one of our hidden senses. So yeah, you didn’t learn about it in h- in kindergarten, but it is important, and it literally is working all of the time in our life. It is what helps us understand where our body is when we’re being tipped backwards.
So, you know, if you think about just laying down on the floor or laying down in bed at night, you probably do not think about this, but kids with vestibular sensitivities, being tipped backwards where they cannot see, so they’re having to completely rely on their vestibular system. If it’s not processing th- that, that input very well, it’s going to make them feel dizzy. It’s going to make them feel unsteady. It’s going to make them potentially feel like they’re falling.