Taking your child out anywhere can sometimes feel like a daunting task. You never know what they are going to get into, or how they’ll react. If your child has autism, these feelings can be enhanced tenfold. A simple task like taking your child to get their hair cut can seem overwhelming for everyone involved. One barber has changed that for a Quebec boy and his mom.
Franz Jacob is a barber in Rouyn-Noranda, in Quebec’s Abitibi-Temiscamingue region. He started his old-fashioned barbershop two years ago. The eclectic shop is filled with posters and old-style memorabilia artfully decorating the whole place. The register is even an old-fashioned register. All of this makes it a fun place for a kid to come and explore. Franz has gained internet popularity recently because of a photo was taken by one of his customer’s mothers. She shared a photo of the tatted-up barber, lying on the floor with her son, finishing up his haircut. Franz said that his six-year-old customer has autism and he understands that he needs to follow him around the store to complete the haircut, and he seems to have no problem doing it.
The customer’s name is Wyatt, and his mother is Fauve. Fauve shared the image on Imgur, and the photo has since been viewed almost 850,000 times. Fauve says that Franz is a sort of everyday hero in how he handles her son. She says she doesn’t have to get involved with the haircut at all because Franz takes care of all of it. Fauve says her son is both hyposensitive and hypersensitive, meaning that at times he may not feel any pain, but sometimes it can be unbearable for him to have his hair touched. It used to be a struggle to find someone to cut Wyatt’s hair until she found Franz and his shop.
He did such a great job that she referred several other parents of kids with autism to him, so Franz now has several customers with autism. He says most parents bring their child in at the end of the day and Franz spends a little over an hour with each of them. Fauve says he greets each of them like his best friend. She was shocked that her post was shared out of her immediate circle and she’s hoping it will spread awareness about how to handle other people’s differences.
Franz Jacob has been practicing being a barber since he was just a teenager, and would try out his different styles on his friends. His Instagram account is filled with artsy photos of hair and his barber shop, but he’s grateful that the one that’s being shared all over the media is the one of him cutting Wyatt’s hair. As a barber, he has an opportunity to see all kinds of people in all walks of life and talk to them about their experiences. He even cuts the hair of people who are terminally ill. It opens an emotional side of his work that might not otherwise be seen. Doing this work makes him proud of what he does.
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Source: CBC News
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