Our little Charlotte loves to suck  her thumb.  When she was one, she started to run her fingers through her hair for comfort.  At the time we noticed one day that her hair was thinning.  As she ran her fingers through her hair she started to pull it out.  Her hair on the left side of head got thinner and thinner.  Eventually she had no hair on the left side of her head from hair pulling or what someone might call "Trichotillomania" as shown in the image below.

I was worried and thought this may have been some sort of anxiety disorder or social anxiety.  I took  her to our GP and her pediatrician.  My GP suggested taping a glove on her hand with medical tape.  This seemed to work.  However, it was not always practical and I would often forget to put it back on after baths etc. and she continued loosing hair.  The pediatrician told us that she would eventually grow out of it .....but I was becoming more and more concerned.  People were beginning to ask me what was wrong with her!!!  I had some advice from my brother Ron and some friends at church.  They suggested that I shave her head!  I found it as difficult to shave her head as when I had to shave my hair after chemotherapy treatment.  After trying to attempt the cut myself I conceded and finally took her to my hairdresser.  I paid $13.00 for them to shave her hair off!   It was such a hard decision and it was so hard to see her without hair as this image below shows... a few weeks after her "budda" haircut.

My brother said that he learnt in psychology that it takes 30 days to break a bad habit.  It took a lot longer than 30 days for her hair to grow back.....but when it did....she did not pull her hair out!!! She still has a fascination with hair and now runs her fingers through her dolls hair as she drifts off to sleep.  At least she now has beautiful hair that it long enough to put up in pigtails as shown below...