To think schools should take nits more seriously?

DC had nits end of autumn term. Only change was DC hair wasn't being braided that term. I let closest friends know and let school know via email. Then conditioned every 2 days and used the treatment twice. Everyone else in the house treated. Took 10 days in total. Hair now washed with tea tree shampoo and conditioner. Tied back and braided for school. I had no response from school office and parents were grateful for the heads up. I did what I thought was right and a lot of laundry those 10 days...

Well I can assure you the teachers hate them as much as you do.

Maybe the nursery staff are allowed to check for headlice and have the time to do it. Maybe you were just lucky.

Well yes @CaptainMyCaptain it does seem to, apologies if my post was a bit garbled with auto correct. I understand perfect well how nits work thank you very much. What I don’t understand is what it is about school in particular, because in 3 years of daycare for both kids, no nits, not mentioned by any other parents, nothing on the nursery whats app groups, then bam you get to school and the fuckers are everywhere. And they play very much on the same way at day care!

Bits are just part of life!

Definitely not worthy of keeping kids off school

I'm surprised they get away with that. Even the NHS website says you don't need to keep a child off school with nits

I work with children as a nurse and we have some regular patients who always have nits at every admission, which we have to treat. Every time 🤔

DM is unable to wash but refuses to let others help her. Shes 88 and has osteoporosis My niece lives there and works in a school for SEN children and caught head lice off one of the kids. Apparently the child has had it for ages and the reason is the parents cant keep on top of it because he and his brothers and sisters keep passing it to each other. 🙄 Dreading DM catching it because she will just refuse to be touched. Cant wash properly but refuses help.

And much earlier in the thread I posted some article saying that the presence of the nit nurses didn't have much impact anyway.

Presumably you are aware that schools don’t have nurses like that any more and none of those things happen now?

I used to do the treatment and then do the conditioner and nit comb every day for 7 days at which point we were usually clear. If we found anything in that 7 days, then we started again with the 7 days. I then kept a very fine mist spray bottle by the door with water and a few drops of tea tree oil.in it and we just spritzed on the way out every morning. With 3 children, only had 2 bouts of it in primary.

Unfortunately, school nursing services like all other NHS services have been utterly decimated over the last decade. In many areas of the country they have also been privatised as NHS trusts could not compete with private providers promising to run them for pittance, and so those services are now run with far fewer, less qualified staff offering a fraction of the 'face to face' interventions they used to offer. In our locality it all takes place via text, phone or pre-recorded online workshops now and school nurses have no direct contact with children or families at all.

The pupils at my school whose parents don’t treat their nits are the ones that are perpetually flagged as having concerns with their attendance. If schools said they couldn’t come in when they had nits, their attendance would be dire and nits given as a perpetual excuse.

Ime it tends to be one family who won’t do anything about the issue, who constantly re infect the rest of the class.

Unless you've been living under a rock presumably you've heard that schools are skint? Some are resorting to a 4 day week, vital building repairs are not happening and many schools are making TA's and admin staff redundant. Staff who are leaving are not being replaced. So who is going to pay for a Nurse to come into school regularly to de-louse children? There is no 'nit budget' that we can tap into, sadly.

As for not allowing children back in school until they're nit free, I'm afraid if we did that there would be a few children we never saw again, and those are the children who most need to be in school due to their vulnerability. That's leaving aside the fact that we can't simply exclude children for any reason that takes our fancy, there are quite strict rules around that sort of thing.

Believe me, school staff don't want to be catching nits and taking them home to our families. The responsibility lies with parents and we cannot force them to give a shit so your frustration, while understandable, is entirely mis-directed.

Presumably that's because you don't see them, don't have any or because they're bald then. My point stands.

Another vote for tea tree shampoo. Original Source used to do a mint and tea tree shampoo and conditioner (not sure if they still do, think maybe is just shower gel now?), but nits used to hate that stuff. It was much more pleasant and cost effective to use on a regular/daily basis than treatments.

@Katemax82
It is the alcohol. We used to say we made the nits drunk so they couldn't hold on!

Some parents should take nits more seriously.
Schools have enough to do already.

Yes back in the 70s we had school nurses & they used to do regular checks for nits, give out multivitamin medicine, check teeth etc. I remember being shown how to wash hands too. There might be some children who have parents incapable of teaching them how to get rid of nits & maybe having that basic care in school is the only place they will get it. For some children school really is a safe space.

No chance of grandparents infecting my kids...

It'll be the alcohol. My daughter had bad nits and I finally got rid by dousing g her hair and scalp in perfumers alcohol

The two times my daughter had them I contacted the parent of the child she had been spending all her time with to check them for nits as they had had head to head contact. Also the school can put it in their news letter about how nits are going round and can people please check their kids regularly. Also make sure if you have girls tie their hair up

Sometimes the lice are obvious but you are not allowed to actually look for them any more. I was an Early Years teacher for over 30 years and avoided them by
a) not getting my head too close to any of the children - which can be hard when listening to them read
b) doing the hair conditioner and nit comb thing every single time I washed my hair just to be on the safe side.

Lice found? Child sent home. (Yes, I know they can't).

Why is everything the schools responsibility? They are there to educate children.
It’s up to the parents to treat their child for nits.

One school or one person’s experience doesn’t represent a country. I went to school in the UK and never had nits. I don’t recall anyone in my school having them. Neither of my siblings have had them. My child and my niephlings have never had them either. I taught in several schools in China for six years; I didn’t hear of any outbreaks there either.