Westerly parents help daughter participate in 'Crazy Hair Day' at school

WESTERLY, R.I. (WJAR) — Westerly parents recently went above and beyond for their daughter so she could participate in her school's "Crazy Hair Day."

Five-year-old Piper Behan is bald.

"She had hair until she was about two, we started seeing some patches, we looked into what it was," said Amanda Gowen, Piper's mom. "She did have hand, foot, and mouth. They did say it could affect the auto immune response and change things from there and that's what happened with her."

According to Gowen, her hair grew back once but then it fell out again.

Regardless, over the years, Gowen and Piper's dad, Josh Behan, said it hasn't bothered their daughter.

"When it first happened, it was rattling at first because you're like, 'What’s going on? My kid who had two pigtails all the sudden doesn't have them.' And you of course worry how that's going to affect them. If other people are going to be kind," said Gowen. "But Piper, she's a spunky happy little kid."

"Yeah, she's super confident, funny and a character," said Behan. "She makes friends everywhere."

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This year, Piper joined her 8-year-old brother Eli at State Street Elementary School.

She's in kindergarten in Mrs. Troop's class.

"During the beginning of school, we had this book that we donated to a foundation to get, and it's called, 'My Hair Went on Vacation.' It's by a girl who has alopecia and her mom," explained Gowen. "On the first or second day of kindergarten, the teacher read it and the kids took it. That was it, no big deal. They're little. It was kind of like you give them information and they're like, 'OK.' Ask and answered, done. They don't think about it."

Ever since, Amanda and Josh have said things have been smooth sailing.

Piper's grandfather bought her a wig, but she likes her bald head.

"I don't care," the 5-year-old told NBC 10's Sam Read. "Because it's not a big deal."

"We were supposed to get some blood work done to look into something and she's like, 'I don't want my hair back, I don't need the blood work done'," said Gowen.

"She definitely has the personality to deal with something like this. If it was the other way around it would be different, I would be nervous," said Behan.

While having hair isn't a big deal to Piper, her school's crazy hair day is something she was excited for.

Her brother has participated in it for the past four years.

"Eli has really crazy hair," said Gowen. "We've always done things with him where we paint it like a mohawk or something, so we knew piper was going to have this crazy hair day coming up."

"We're like, 'What're we going to do? What can we do for a girl with no hair?'" said Gowen.

Gowen went online and found some cool ideas. She then went to the craft store and purchased dozens of stick-on rainbow jewels.

"I just kind of started making shapes on her head and before we knew it, we covered her whole head with flowers, swirls, hearts," she said.

"We bedazzled our child," said Behan. "Yeah, we bedazzled our kids' heads."

Piper was eager and excited to head to school.

"It was pretty impressive. She was pretty proud she couldn't wait to go and show them her hair," said Gowen.

"It was awesome," said Piper. "They put a lot of gems on my head."

"I thought it looked really cool," added Eli. "I like all the designs and colors. It was cool."

While Piper loved her newly designed head, so did the staff and students at the school.

"She was getting comments all over the place, which was really fun," said Gowen. "We went up to Providence after school she kept the jewels on, she had them on until bed."

Piper's parents took lots of pictures of the pair and posted them to social media.

The pictures of their crazy hair day got a lot of love on social media.

"People from all over town were commenting for like days after, weeks after, saying, 'Oh, this is so nice I saw her' and we went to the dentist office they're like, 'Piper, we saw that head that was pretty cool'," said Gowen. "It was a great thing but she's always just super confident and happy anyway, this was nice, it was really nice."

Piper, though the younger sister, has helped Eli when it comes to accepting who you are.

He told NBC 10 he was proud of his little sister and her confidence, something his parent's say he had been worried about.