If you live in the East End you might have heard screams coming from my house. You might have heard: “Stop! You’re hurting me! Ahhh ... Leave me alone. You’re abusing me!”

It might surprise my neighbours to learn I am not beating my child, merely trying to brush her hair.

The brush in question is a soft brush. To get through my daughter’s lovely wavy hair I probably need something stronger — possibly a rake — but honestly, I just couldn’t face any increase in yelling.

My daughter has a very tender head. The shouting usually starts when I’m holding the brush about an inch from her hair. Sometimes I hold individual locks of hair and try to just brush the knots from there, but it doesn’t seem to help. Sometimes we both sob.

Once, I had someone cut it. We sat her down on top of a pile of phone books on a chair in front of the television. The cartoon, My Little Ponies, is the ultimate numbing agent. She didn’t even notice the clumps of hair falling to the floor, until the show was over. Unfortunately, the stuff grew back.

Recently, I’ve handed over the hairbrush to her, a more painful process than listening to the shrieking. I was raised by a mother who firmly believes that letting your child go out of the house with a crooked part is parental neglect.

My sister and I endured having our hair brushed every morning until we were ten or 11. When my mother finished our hair was in such a tight ponytail we found it hard to blink.

My daughter refuses to put the hair elastic on tightly, so the hair quickly escapes. If I don’t watch her, she’ll put it up without actually brushing her hair at all.

She’s now getting better at it, but the first time half of her hair was out and half of it was up.

My husband said, “Let her go; no one will notice”. Don’t you just love men?

That morning, she jumped out of the car at school and the teacher immediately said, “Oh, I see you did your own hair today”.

My face went red when she said it, but she was smiling. My daughter smiled back proudly and said: “Yes, I did!” I guess her increased self-confidence, and the extra peace in the morning make it worth it.