Barber Offers Parents Benjamin Button Special Haircut for Misbehaving Kids

A suburban Atlanta barber is offering parents of misbehaving kids a “Benjamin Button Special,” a haircut designed to make kids look like old men.

Russell Fredrick, co-owner of the A-1 Kutz barber shop in Snellville, said the first recipient of the “Benjamin Button Special,” a shaved head with the sides and back left in place in the style of a balding elderly man, was his own 12-year-old son.

Fredrick told The Washington Post his son’s failing grades “dramatically skyrocketed” after receiving the haircut last fall, so he decided to start offering the haircut as a free-of-charge option for parents seeking unconventional disciplinary measures for unruly kids.

The first customer to accept the offer, the mother of a 10-year-old who had been misbehaving in school, said the haircut succeeded in correcting his behavior and the boy returned to the store four days later to fix the style.

Fredrick posted pictures of the 10-year-old on Instagram, where they went viral. “There are a few people that are saying its emotional abuse; but on average, everyone is applauding the mother that brought the child in — and applauding me as well,” the barber said.

“He understood why it happened and he rolled with it and allowed it to make him stronger,” Fredrick said of the 10-year-old in the pictures. “You got to reach these kids somehow, and I would gladly do it again.”