pain-threedaysgrace:

There are a lot of posts here saying “Allow your kids to be different!” and that’s important. But the other way around, it’s important, too: Never force your kids to be different. 

I used to work in a kindergarten and there was one little 4-year-old boy who walked in with a blue mohawk one day. His mom dyed her hair blue, too and she was very proud of her son and herself for being “special” and not like the others. The other kids thought it was really cool and funny, nobody laughed at him. However, as soon as his mom left he started crying. When i tried to comfort him, he told me he doesn’t like it when people touch his hair and now everybody wants to touch his hair. When asked if he told his mom, he just looked up at me and said  "She didn’t listen.“

So, long story short: Don’t raise your child “different”. Raise them individually. Listen. Care. Find out who your child is and who they want to be. And if they want blue hair, that’s cool. But if not, please respect it.