My 7 year old has very thick hair. She has insisted she wants to grow it long and especially since the pandemic started and we haven't been getting haircuts, it's gotten long and thick. Which means epic tangling, despite using conditioner and detangler regularly. Every morning and every night and after every shower, she is literally screaming her head off about how much the tangles hurt, and I keep telling her then we need to cut your hair and she gets mad about that and it makes the whole thing worse. Every single day. I'm sick of it, but I also want to respect her body autonomy. I've taught her how to comb her hair, DH and I are always there to help if she can't do it herself or wants help, it doesn't matter, nothing seems to help the daily tantrum over this.

So, first, is there a magic solution that I'm missing to help this issue in the first place? Her hair typically gets washed every other day/every 2 days, depending on how sweaty she gets playing, always shampoo and conditioner, then we comb it with a wet comb and put a detangling spray in, put it up in a twist towel (though even if we don't do this the results are the same) and she prefers to have it air dried, which we typically do, but on days where she showers closer to bedtime we do hair dryer (which she also really hates). Regardless of what we do, though, the tangles are still pretty major. Switching her pillowcase isn't realistic because she rarely sleeps on a pillow/very mobile during sleep, which probably contributes to the tangling.

Second, if there is no magic product, is there a better way to set boundaries here? I am just so over the shouting all the time, at something she herself insists on. I've told her all this before and she's generally a smart kid but still, every damn day this is a thing.

Thank you! #tearingmyhairout