Haircuts are painful sometimes...

letter to SmartStyle today:    

I took my son to the SmartStyle salon in the St. Cloud, FL, location today. He sat down for his haircut and had a meltdown. He is 8 years old and has autism. He was anxious about his haircut and needed a few minutes to calm down. In the process, he grabbed the scissors to give himself a haircut but the scissors were removed from his hands without incident. The stylist was calm and willing to give him time to calm down. He finally sat quietly and said that he was ready for his haircut. It was at the moment that the stylist told me that she was willing to cut his hair but her boss, Virginia Lebron, would not allow her to finish his haircut. I explained that my son has autism and Ms. Labron looked at me and just shrugged while continuing to work on another client's hair. I mentioned that she was refusing service to someone with a disability.
Autism is a neurological disorder. Here is a web site for more information about what our family deals with on a daily basis. http://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism
Professionally, the least Ms. Lebron could have done was speak to me about why she was denying my son service at the salon. As an ethical person, she could have done more than shrug her shoulders.
My son was diagnosed with autism over three years ago and I have not cried so hard in public in a long time. I was embarrassed and hurt for my son who thought that he was naughty. If I thought he wasn't capable of handling the haircut after he calmed down, I would have walked out with him. He cried in the front entrance of the salon and begged for the stylist to cut his hair while his brother finished his haircut with another stylist. He has been disturbed by this incident the rest of the day.
Our family is still recovering from this experience. We are considering what do next. We want you to be aware of this incident so you can correct any policies and/or train employees so this doesn't occur in the future with other children, particularly those with disabilities.