WRITTEN BY MICHELLE BREYER ON HER BLOG, THECURLYCONNECTION

Amanda Crawford will never forget the sight of her 8-year-old daughter Deborah-Ann coming off the school bus in tears. The second-grader had been viciously teased about her coily hair.

“They told her she had horse hair,” Crawford said. “When your kid struggles with something that’s such a part of who she is, it’s incredibly painful.”

Crawford said her daughter – who is biracial – already was unhappy about her hair, which didn’t look like either mother’s curly hair or the straight hair of most of her schoolmates. She usually wore it back in a ponytail, slicked down with gel in an attempt to control it.

Her mom took to the Internet, and found our NaturallyCurly Facebook page. She showed her daughter examples of women with gorgeous natural hairstyles Deborah-Ann asked her mom to post a picture of her on the Facebook page. Crawford posted the picture, along with the story about the teasing she got about her hair.

The response was overwhelming – and life changing.

That picture got nearly 33,000 likes, 1,400 shares and 4,800 comments – the most ever for a NaturallyCurly Facebook post. People posted words of support, photos of their own daughters and positive comments about Deborah-Ann’s hair.

“I was crying,” Crawford said. “I read a lot of the comments to her and she was so tickled. She’s turned it around and is so much more confident. She loves her hair and wears it down now. She realizes her hair is beautiful just the way it is.”