That Fear Was Rational
I work with kids with developmental disabilities. One of the kids I was working with was afraid of hair clippers. With the approval of his parents and our director, who initiated this, we adjusted a tolerance program so that we were actually clipping some of his hair using a pretty thick guard on the clippers. He was getting REALLY good at it.
One day, I took out the clippers and was about to begin, but the kid looked at the clippers and said, “no no no!!” I reassured him that he was going to be fine, so he very quickly stopped and I proceeded. I began to cut his hair and then BAM, HUGE bald spot. It turns out the kid was saying “no” because he noticed the guard wasn’t on the clippers!
I freaked out and called his mom over. Luckily, she just busted out laughing. She said the kid’s dad preferred him with “short hair” anyways, so we proceeded to cut off the rest of his hair. He did great!
Story credit: Reddit / happinesshield