“Crying is okay here,” says Paris Bissat who, with her sister Bridget Brielmaier, co-founded Adventure Cuts, a Carlsbad salon for children.

Not your father's barber shop.

^{Courtesy of Action Cuts}

“Kids don’t like haircuts,” Bissat says. “My son is seven years old now. When he was very little he hated haircuts to the point of kicking and screaming. I tried different places and was turned away because they would not take a child that would cry or scream.”

Brielmaier says that other specialty children’s salons may even tack on a crying tax. “If the child acts up in any way, shape, or form or cries, they charge an additional fee,” she says.

The sisters compared notes with other mothers and found that there was a need for a meltdown-proof kid’s salon. They opened the doors to Adventure Cuts almost two years ago. Thereafter, they were soon discovered by a whole new population: special needs children.

April is Autism Awareness Month. In December 2009, the Center for Disease Control released new data that said that one in seven children in the U.S. is born with some form of developmental or learning disability. The Autism Research Institute in San Diego says new statistics show that one in 65 boys nationwide is born with a form of autism.

Jeanette Fransen’s son is five and a half years old. He has been diagnosed with autism. His first haircut was at Adventure Cuts.

“A lot of kids with autism like cars and trains,” says Fransen. “They have a big Thomas the Train set right in front. They allowed me and his special needs therapist to stay with him. I brought in some of his favorite treats, and they played his favorite movie.”

Up to that point, Fransen says she had been giving her son buzz cuts at home. She wanted him to have a different style, but she understood the challenge that lie ahead.

“His therapist practiced giving him a haircut at home for a couple of weeks before we went in,” she says.

Although adult cuts are offered, the salon is more youth fun zone than salon. The walls are covered with cartoon murals. Open play areas equipped with toys are placed throughout, and each stylist’s station has a flat screen television for the watching of videos. Gone are those hydraulic barber seats of old, having been replaced with purple airplanes and race cars and pink Barbie cars.

Gone, too, are the ill-tempered minty-breathed old barbers in white smocks that made them look suspiciously like dentists. In their place are stylists who enjoy their clients and have patience on the magnitude of a saint.

“You have to love kids,” says Brielmaier. “Kids are your first critics. They can tell if you like them or if you don’t like them.” She says they did not design the salon specifically for children with disabilities; it just turned out that way. “We knew with opening this sort of place that we were going to encounter all different types of children.”

“We don’t want to restrict any children,” says Bissat. “The key part is that all children are welcome here.”

On April 10, Adventure Cuts will host “Character Day to Support Autism.” Stylists in costumes will be giving free haircuts to any child with autism, and a portion of the day’s proceeds will be donated to the Autism Research Institute of San Diego.

(For more information, call the salon at 760-804-1792.)