Yes, it does happen a lot.  It’s almost a rite of passage.

"Dad goes upstairs to check on boys in shower. Finds hair covering shower floor. Sees older brother hiding Mom’s razor, and younger brother with puzzled expression. Shall I finish the story, or… ?" [See picture at right]

"I once did that to my brother with my dads electric shaver (a long time ago!)"

"I’m sorry, but this is funny. Something to talk about when the boys grow up."

"My daughter just did the same thing a couple of weeks ago, but the front and with scissors. I think every kid does it, but it’s probably easier with a boy. My little girl went from Shirley Temple to Joe Dirt in about 2 minutes while I was washing dishes! I did my best to fix the damage, but she still looks like a boy until it grows out."

"Our third son did the same just a few weeks ago, but with scissors. Off went all of his hair with attachment #3 (3/8 inch)."

"I remember when our daughter decided her bangs were too long. She cut them right back to the top of her head."

"Awesome. I’ve got a 2 year old and a 1 month old, both boys. I’m looking forward to their hijinks. :)"

"When I was six my Dad was supposed to be watching us while my Mom was at work. Instead he watched TV. I took the opportunity to try out my new Crayola scissors and cut all the hair off of my younger sisters (two and four). All my mom could do was buzz it down and put them in a wide assortment of hats. For months people thought my sisters had leukemia."

"I wish I could say I had a brother that did that to me… Unfortunately it was I who went ahead and gave myself a hair cut with crayola scissors, while watching Pinocchio and eating a box full of clorets…"

"In the first grade, back when I had long hair, I cut a large chunk out of the front of my hair. Two days before school photos were taken, of course! And then I blamed it on Thad Smith, the class scapegoat (he drooled and was big for his age)."

"My parents have told me that my brother had been doing this to me regularly when we were children. btw he is a hairdresser nowadays"

"I havent had the kids cut their hair yet. But my 18-month old daughter did happen to find her way into a bottle of vaseline. She managed to get about half the bottle rubbed well into her once beautiful mane of hair.  It took about 5 corn starch shampoo treatments to get it back to normal."

"My 8 year old chopped a chunk out of the front of her hair a couple of years ago, the most annoying thing about this was she had just grown her hair to all one length, long enough for me to be able to put it up easily for her ballet class."

"They all do it! My two boys have done the same and even far worse. You get mileage from it later since you have a photo! The fun of being parents is watching your kids do this kind of thing. It’s what makes it worthwhile!"

"Yes, they all do it. When my son was three, not only did he cut his own hair….he held the cat down and cut the whiskers off the cat too."

"I’m an older brother but I actually did this to myself when I was little (actually I used a pair of scissors to remove a huge chunk of fringe, but near enough). Don’t tell anyone though, I’m still embarrassed about the hair affair."

"One day I found the clippers Mom had in a closet somewhere and must have decided I could give myself a better haircut than that sadist at the shop could, so I did. I ended up with a reverse mohawk, freaked out and ran to my room and pretended to be asleep when the parents found the evidence. They did not fix it. At least right away."

"At Christmas one year I was recovering from a tonsillectomy, had some metal scissors and was still loopy from the anesthesia. I was putting the cool metal on my face and opening and closing the scissors. My sister came in, laughed at me and told my mom that I had shorn off half of one of my eyebrows."

"My buddies daughter did that with scissors…by the time they caught her, she had hacked off over half of the hair on the top of her head.  She wore hats for about 6 months."

"We’ve been lucky in the “haircutting” department. With our FIVE kids especially. One or two have tried it, but never really got very far."

"My four years old daughter did it with scissors some months ago, fortunately she was just making some ‘retouches’ and didn’t cut too much. The one who lost all her hair was the poor Barbie, she looks like Sinnead O’Connor now…"

"I shaved my whole head including eyebrows when I was about four. Now I’m forty four and I want to do it again… but not the eye brows just the head."

UPDATE:  More stories here:

"Josie cut her hair and her sister’s hair last year. Lou’s was so badly butchered we had to give her an intentionally asymmetrical haircut (very Carnaby Street ca 1966) to keep her from looking like a boy; if we had evened it out she would have looked like a Louis, not a Louisa. The good thing about hair is, it grows."

"It won’t be the first bad self-haircut the hairdresser has seen, and it certainly won’t be the last. I think it’s a rite of passage for children and their parents to mangle the hair at least once."

"I just recieved a phonecall from my mother saying that my 4 year old daughter is crying because she cut her own hair. I’m thinking to myself, ok, maybe its not so bad so I tell them to send a picture to my email. Her hair is butchered!!! Her bangs are cut all the way across down to the scalp and there is a huge chunk missing from the side of her head. It has taken her 4 years to get hair down to her shoulders and now I am gonna have to cut it atleast to her ears all the way around!!! My mother tells me that I am over reacting but I dont think I am. I dont see how this can be fixed by any hairdresser and it will take forever to grow back. "

IN RESPONSE TO THE COMMENT ABOVE, the Editor of The New Homemaker writes: "It’s just hair. Your reaction is going to affect her reaction. If she gets upset, remind her that she cut her hair and maybe next time if she decides to do that she’ll remember how she feels right now. Both of my girls have cut their hair, pretty badly. It all worked out okay. Hair grows back. Just repeat to yourself–HAIR GROWS BACK."

"Mad now, but take pictures, you’ll have a laugh later!! Ok, granted, it hasn’t happened to me (yet. but my daughters are now 6 and 8 and HOPEFULLY have outgrown this stage!). But I think I would take pictures, since I’m a scrapbooker anyway (or at least I claim to be). Always take pictures, you can blackmail them later. "

UPDATE: More here and here and here and here and here.  My God!  You would think it’s an epidemic!

I only cut my own hair once.  I was 20.  I had bleached blonde hair then (think Billy Idol).  I was "punk" (when punk was big) and I lived in London.  That probably doesn’t count though, right?