I agree, it will grow back, so it really isn’t a big deal. Ever think he is doing it to look like you?
As someone whose son has had hair so long he could donate 18 inches to Lock of Love when he was 12, I say it’s only hair. Let him!
Maybe he’s a reincarnated buddhist monk getting his own back. All that stuff you thought was a byproduct of autism was actually tibetan tantric chanting. 
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*I have an autistic 6 year old and hope you find the comment as amusing as I do.
I’d like to think that I’d be completely comfortable with this sort of thing if I were a parent. Who does it harm? Is it permanent? If the answers are "no one’ and “no” then why prevent it? In a couple of years - or maybe even at this age - the kid’s just going to find a friend to do it for him without parental permission anyways if it’s what he really wants. I’d rather be permissive on little things but firm on the permanent things (tattoos, those ear-hole-stretching piercings…I’m fine with other piercings) than be so strict as to have a kid go behind my back.
This doesn’t seem like a battle worth fighting, and besides, in less than a month he’ll have enough hair to get a different style if he doesn’t like it (or at least that’s about true for my husband’s hair!)
Let him do it.
Make that boys and the 80s and you have my response. At that point I was fighting my mother because I wanted to grow my hair, but several other girls expressed envy of the guys, who could get a 00-shave; my BFF got to have a real-short haircut after her First Communion and has kept her hair short since. She used the birth of her first daughter as an excuse to finally get that 00 
I don’t see any issue with it as a “statement”. I think you having a reaction to it will be a much bigger deal than any other source of consequence. Personally I think a really close buzz looks better, but shaved will turn into that shortly if you don’t keep up with it.
The only reservation I would have is letting a young person play with razors.
When I went through my shaving my head phase, I quickly abandoned it because it’s a little tricky area to clean shave, and it’s a much too tedious task for me to want to bother having to upkeep every few days. I found the close buzz to be much easier to do, with less frequent upkeep, and more aesthetically pleasing.
Even as a non autistic person, sometimes I just get sick of having hair on my head and out comes the buzzer!
Sure, why not? It’s just hair and it will grow back.
I’ve buzzed and/or shaved my head for years and as a late teen/early twenty-something I had hair down to my shoulders. It’s just about the least permanent self-expression style choice you can make.
As it happens, I’m due to break out the clippers and razor any day now.
Being autistic, he doesn’t always pick up on social norms. I was kind of worried that the other kids at school might give him a ration of shit. I was especially concerned minority groups thinking he’s a skinhead. (As in racist)
But then again, I’m old and I got kicked out of the “Cool Kids Club” a long time ago. So maybe kids don’t think like that anymore. Which is a good thing.
Thinks for the input guys. I guess I’ll let him have at it.
I’ve always heard that the first rule of parenthood is “Pick your battles wisely,” and I would guess that counts double for the parent of an autistic child.
Let him do it if he wants. No great harm done.
I vote for this. It’s what I do and it’s the best decision I ever made. It’s quick and easy to maintain, easy to clean, and saves me a ton of time; it’s always ready to go, even immediately after getting up in the morning. The last thing I need to worry about when leaving the house is what my damn hair looks like.
What does his mom think?
My 13 y.o. switches between long hair and a #2 buzz fairly regularly. I guess it depends on what persona he’s trying on at the time. Last year he went for surfer look, this year he’s sporting a buzz cut and uniform style clothing. Last year he was in junior ROTC and this year he is not, so he’s a bit out of sync, but that’s cool with me. He has Asperger’s, but I think changing styles is a normal activity in the teen years (and beyond). My kid is usually on “the outs” socially, but that’s normal for us. He doesn’t really like teens, but likes adults quite a bit. C’est la vie (sp?)
I don’t think I go for the shave, but a #2 buzz cut would be acceptable to me.
That’s pretty much my thinking for my kids, as well. But I’ll offer another point of view, from my stepmom’s hindsight in dealing with my stepbrother. Kids need something to rebel against. If you let them do everything that’s okay with you, then they’ll keep pushing the envelope until they’ve found the thing that really isn’t okay with you. For my 'bro, it went like this: He wanted to grow his hair long. Mom shrugged. So he started not brushing his hair. Mom shrugged. So he stopped washing his hair. Mom inwardly went “ew” and outwardly shrugged - it was only himself he was “hurting”, right? So then he stopped bathing entirely. Well, that was Not Okay, and of course she put her foot down, which caused the battles. In retrospect, she thinks perhaps she should have put on a bit of a show of resistance when he started growing it long. Not ultimately prevented him from doing it, but let him *think *that it annoyed her, so that he could express his individuality by growing his hair, rather than by being a gross stinky boy.
shrug I think it depends on the kid. My 'bro was a real hardheaded nutcase.
He doesn’t admire skinheads – he admires his dad and wants to be like him.
Awww!
The thing about hair is, it grows back. If for some reason it turns out to be a bad idea, well, it’ll take care of itself with time.
When I was 17, my parents kept griping about me needing to get a haircut. I told them I would when they paid for it. Fast forward a month or two, they told me I had to or they wouldn’t pay for something, I don’t remember what. I went to the barber’s shop and got my head shaved. I even paid a few bucks extra for a straight razor shave. My parents were pissed, but I told them if I had to pay for my haircut I was going to get my money’s worth. They got over it in less than a day.
I regretted it in less than two days. I was working at a golf course and got a peeling sunburn on my head in an afternoon.
I vote for let him do it. Echoing others, it grows back, it won’t get him ostracized, and it feels nice in the summer.
…and buy him a hat.
Another vote for letting him do it.
Well if you are that worried about school, could you talk to the school officials? Get their input? They are there all day everyday, I would think that they would have some relevant input if you asked about the possibilities of your son being mistaken for a skinhead or picked on for having a shaved head.
When I was in school there were several guys who learned that if they gave themselves a close buzz cut that girls would stand in front of them and ask to feel their heads, which meant they got to lean forward and basically shove their face in a girl’s cleavage. It became a very popular hair cut once that little discovery was made!