Spa treatments for kids raise waxed eyebrows

Victoria Clayton • E-mail

When the Cappo family vacationed at a San Diego resort two years ago, Pam Cappo treated her daughter to what she’d always viewed as a grown-up indulgence: a spa experience.

“I got a massage and I loved it! It’s sooooo relaxing,” says Ashley Cappo, who is now 11.

Since then, Ashley has been hooked. And so have her friends in her hometown of Westlake Village, Calif. They’ve had numerous birthday parties at spas and can now converse about the merits of various massages, facials and professional hair and nail treatments.

“I was in my 30s before I had my first massage,” admits Pam Cappo. “But it’s different today.”

It sure is. In the past few years, children such as Ashley have followed the example of their spa-embracing parents. According to the International Spa Association, more than half of the nearly 14,000 spas in the United States offer packages for families, teens or kids. A growing trend is for mothers to ask for products and services designed for themselves as well as their children.

“Mothers have gotten used to being in the spas and especially in very affluent areas they let their children have these kinds of things,” says Nancy Robinson, manager of Eclips Kids, the children-only annex of a salon and day spa in McLean, Va. Eclips Kids has been so popular, in fact, that last year another, bigger location opened in nearby Ashburn, Va.

Eclips and other spas treating children generally offer abbreviated versions of facials, hair and nail treatments and massages (with clothes and parental supervision).

Cappo says she takes her daughter to the spa because she likes it herself and because she thinks Ashley deserves it. “My daughter is a good girl and she makes good choices. I want to reward her and let her know that I appreciate that she’s a good kid.”

But some experts and parents question whether spa treatments are appropriate or necessary for kids.

Diane E. Levin, a professor of education and a researcher on children and commercial culture at Wheelock College in Boston, says that getting kids used to spa treatments is akin to training them to be little Paris Hiltons.

“It worries me because it just tells them that happiness comes from how you look and from buying instead of learning how to do things,” Levin says. “It’s this externalized sense of self and how one fits in the world. If you go to a spa you’re happy for the day, but you haven’t done anything internally to lead to real happiness, success or value.”

Levin says parents should be more interested in helping children to become compassionate people who are skilled at age-appropriate activities such as swimming, art, baby-sitting or even fort-building.

‘Kids are already beautiful’
Renee Mancino, a real estate broker and mother of two in Hawthorn Woods, Ill., agrees. “My daughter is 15 now and we’ve been dealing with this issue since she was 10 or even younger,” says Mancino. “All these girls at her school have been getting eyebrow waxing, lip waxing, manicures, hair color … I just don’t go for it. My job is to feed, clothe, educate and love her. It’s not my job to buy her massages and highlights.”

Mancino says spa and salon treatments are black holes for cash. What’s more, they transform children into looks-obsessed slaves to maintenance.

“It’s ridiculous,” she says. “(Kids) are already beautiful. They don’t need anything. Besides, if you give them all this now, what do they have to look forward to?”

A study by the International Spa Association hints at why not all parents are in synch with Levin or Mancino.

The study found that many adults no longer view spa visits as a luxury but, rather, as a health-care staple. The most common reasons adults say they visit a spa include not only sore joints and muscles, but also to feel better about themselves and for mental and emotional health.

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