Dealing with Daughter with Birthmark

My daughter has brown patch on her neck below her ear. It actually is almost the shape of a butterfly. It basically looks like mud on her neck! A lot of kids asked what it was, she proudly spoke up and said "it is an angel kiss!!!", she actually has always worried her brother has no birthmark, so it is how you approach it. She asks everyone if they have an angel kiss and is very proud she has one. I have one on the back of my leg, hated wearing shorts, but now with my daughter really excited about angels kissing her that she reminds me it is nothing!

Don't set her up for worrying about what someone else says, it will come to a point a child will ask, most young kids are curious not malicious. Have her wear it proudly that it makes her unique. If she wants bangs then so be it but don't let her think it is to cover it up. Talk to her about it and explain what birthmarks are and have her be aware and be able to answer for herself without letting her know there could be ridcule. If it doesn't bother her, don't let it bother you. Kids are amazing in what they are accepting of. One of my best friends I grew up with had a birthmark, dark purple on the side of her face. I remember thinking how pretty she was, she had the bluest eyes, dark long hair and I looked past it and never even really paid attention to it. She was a great outgoing girl too! :)

As she gets older she may want to discuss removal, after her skin changes as she grows it may actually move or change. I know I have a scar I had on my cheek as a child, it is now below my chin line.

My son was born with a "hole in his head." It's just a patch of skin right where his hair would whorl that was missing. It filled in with scar tissue. Technically, it's a birth defect, but luckily it caused no damage (sometimes it can extend through the baby's skull and into his brain).

A pediatric dermatologist said we could have it excised and cinch up the skin around it, to make it a very small scar in stead of the large one he has now. But they said they don't like to do the surgery until the child is 9. They said if he got teased a lot, he could have it done as early as kindergarten (which he starts in the Fall).

It's been a tough decision for us. When he was a baby, kids asked me about it all the time. They said he had a boo-boo on his head. But surprisingly, his peers haven't asked him about it, as far as I know. He just calls it his "bald spot" matter-of-factly. He likes to point out Daddy's (male pattern) bald spot, too :) My 3 year old talks about his bald spot. He seems to think all boys in this family have them :)

I wanted to get the surgery done this summer, before school starts. I am terrified of the social issues my son will face, because he's gifted above his peers, and we have moved around a lot, so he hasn't had opportunities to make friends.

But frankly, he doesn't seem too worried about it. When adults ask me about it, I tell them about it matter-of-factly, with no shame or freakishness in my voice.

My new pediatrician said this usually doesn't require the surgery I was talking about. What??? He showed me the photos of the "typical" kids with this birth defect, and their scars are little slashes that hair grows over. My son's is a big oval, 3/4 inch by 1/2 inch, and his hair doesn't hide it. So the pediatrician said that it's up to me if we do the surgery and when. I think I'd like to go to the local pediatric dermatologist for a consult (his last one was when he was just a few months old) and get some more details. It may be that it's much better to wait until he's 9. So I think we're going to let him start kindergarten and see how it goes. If he gets teased a lot or becomes sensitive about it, we'll pursue the surgery. I bet he'd be a classroom celebrity for missing some school and having surgery!

I guess what we've done is armed him with something to say if kids ask about it. And we treat him like there's no reason to be ashamed.

I wonder if you could arm your daughter with something great to say, too. She could say, "It's my birthmark. Do you have one?" That would probably disarm any kid her age, by giving that child license to talk about himself. No kid can resist that!

And if, when she's older, she does become self-conscious about it, I see no problem with letting her put on some cover-up makeup. But only offer that AFTER she's self-conscious about it, or teaching her to hide it will send her the message that it's ugly and weird and needs to be hidden.

I think you are right on target that your fear is much more important than anything else. You must calm down right away. My sister was born with a strawberry mark on the side of her face. My mother always told her an angel kissed her! It faded over time and now you can hardly see it as an adult. Give her bangs and kisses and don't make a fuss, and she won't either.

My son was born with Albinism. His eyes are pink, his hair is snow white and his skin is very pale. To most adults, he is very obviously different and yes, some people (adults) do make ridiculous, ignorant comments, but most of the time little kids don't even notice. Like you, I was very concerned of how the other kids would respond to him being different, but we haven't had a single problem yet. Our son knows that he's albino and that he has white hair, different eyes and what he calls "expensive" (delicate) skin, but that it doesn't make him wrong or bad in any way, just unique, one of a kind, special. Also, I have a large "port wine stain" birthmark on my arm and I would never in a million years have it removed. I love it because there is no one in the world that has one exactly like mine. But if I had a nickel for every time someone thought I was burned or abused though, I'd be a wealthy woman! Just stay positive and don't make a big deal out of it, your daughter will either love it and be proud of it or she'll want it removed as a teenager, but I wouldn't worry too much about it until then. Freckles, moles, big ears, birthmarks, webbed toes...everybody has something they don't love about themselves, right?