to be angry at parents who do nothing about their kids' headlice?

[atthecarwash]

I've just spent the last 45 min getting rid of the headlice and nits on my two youngest.

I've used a 15 min treatment plus conditioner and comb and it's the 3rd time in a month I've had to do this.

There are parents who simply can't be bothered to get rid of them and they are infecting everyone else. Aren't they disgusted by these pests?Am I overreactng?

Aimmesmum, the reason lice prefer skanky kids is the parents can use the lice as a source of food thus saving money for fags and meths.
Sit the skanky filthy little sods in a lline and have the one behind sorting through the one in fronts hair.
Snacks and you don't need to try to find a brush as the action of trapping the lice will comb the hair. A bit.

My DC have had headlice about a million times. And yes, I do treat them. Every time. Headlice just thrive in schools. Fact of life i'm afraid. It will pass.

BTW OP, you ideally need to treat more than once. Treatments need to be repeated and combing needs to be done every other day for about a week.

YANBU. Our school has a policy of sending kids with headlice home (none of this human rights stuff here ) and they won't be re-admitted until they have been treated and are clear. None of my three kids have had headlice since they started there over three years ago unlike our last UK school where parents openly said "can't be arsed as they just get them again".

DD1 had them for about 5 years, and that was with constant wet-combing and using Hedrin, Lyclear and whatever other miracle lice treatment was about. Lice loved her, more then they did her brother. She had lovely lush dark hair as well and the eggs would show up for months until they were grown out. I used to pick them out but that girl must have a billion hairs on her head so you never got through them all.
DD2 is just starting nursery and I am dreading finding more, especially as she hates anyone touching her hair, DD3 is just a baby and has no hair to speak of.

God I am itching now at the thought of more lice.

bring back the nit nurse

Okay, please help. I don't think dd has them. She has her hair brushed daily, it's always up. I check carefully every time the letter comes home, but not so far all the way through with a nit comb. I have found no evidence, but have been looking for live lice, which I have seen before when working in schools, or little White blobs. Could I be missing something? I'd sooner you lot told me I was neglectful and disgusting than some parents in the playground! At the moment the worst I think I could be accused of is naïveté- why doesn't the letter say how to check properly?

littlebylittle sounds like you're doing it right. Make sure when you check, you section her hair, and pay particular attention to areas behind the ears, and back of the neck. These are their fave breeding grounds. The eggs are usually the first give away it's quite difficult to spot live lice in dark hair.
Check for dark eggs as well as light ones. As these are the ones that haven't hatched.
Sounds like your dd is lucky and just hasn't picked any up. I can usually see the minute dd gets them just when i'm putting her hair up, or brushing it.

She has very thick hair, so when treating them, i section her hair out starting at the bottom with a nitty gritty comb & conditioner & work my way through, tying back both the sections i haven't done and the ones i have done in separate bunches. We repeat every other night until clear.

The nitty gritty comb also removes the eggs

I would hope that parents of children at my DS's school would keep their kids home if they have lice.

Don't put my child (and every other child at school) at risk of getting head lice because you can't be fucking bothered to deal with it when you first notice it.

bibbity

isn't dimeticone a nasty chemical? it is the active component of Hedrin.

i find wet conditioner combing works well, but you have to be persistent, doing it nearly every day. easily done with short hair, not so easy with long.

I just wonder whether people would be more likely to treat their kids if tratments were more available on the NHS. I having spoken to the school nurse who recommends the wet combing approach with a bug buster kit or as otheres have said Nitty Gritty is good too. However, although they appear to be approved for prescription use our surgery won't prescribe them. Even though both dc and myself had a live infestation. Eventually we were prescribed a bottle of Hedrin.

How do you think schools would react if a parent rang in saying x won't be in today they have nits. It wouldn't just be for one day either would it? I would love to keep my dd off to stop the risk of spreading but I fear the classes would be half empty!!

Did anyone hear Jonathan Ross talking about nits? He took his daughter to a woman who removes them with something electronic I think? I am looking for a change of career!! From the postings I am sure I could make a fortune!!

I must admit I think there is a lot of hysteria about them. They don't carry disease, they aren't a sign of a dirty child, they simply itch a lot. Yes you should clear them whenever your child gets them but some people react as if they are carry the Black Death!

sorry, i meant people that the OP describes originally, ie people that can't be bothered to sort their kids nits out are dirty and skanky.

and i am just saying that when i was at school, i never got nits as my mum made sure we were very clean, as i do my DC, who have never got them either, and the ones that did tended to be the skanky kids.

not saying its ALWAYS the case, but it has been in my experience.

sorry if i have offended anyone though. will probably have to eat my words if mine do end up with them.

Used hedrin on my 5year old on saturday. Says to use 7 days later. Looking at what some people are saying should I repeat treatment before then or just use conditioner in between? Have started using vosene teatree shampoo and spray as well. Don't wash his hair every day though as sensitive scalp.

Just use conditioner in between & follow instructions on the bottle :D

supervixen i got nits as a kid. My mum was a clean freak, didn't stop us getting them. Only ever got them twice though.

No-one I knew had headlice when I was a child. I don't think we were any cleaner But our school used to have regular infestations of threadworm. I think i prefer the lice.

I can vaguely remember someone having their head shaved and treatment with gentian violet when I was at infant school.
In Thailand, the nurses would come to the classes every couple of days to check for lice. If a child was found to have them, they'd be taken out of the classroom. No secrecy or sensitivity there.

Trampy kids? Delightful- my children are very well kept thank you. I htink some children are just more prone to them than others.

I think its the trampy parent/s that cannot be arsed in our case. I was told that one parent in particular was told her child was infested and likely passing them on and she did nothing- nothing, telling the keyworker in front of another parent "well they(nits) don't like dirty hair so I won't wash it then"

By the way I am able to remove the eggs- all of them but I do it with tweezers not the comb.

DDs school asks that if you notice them in the morning you treat straight away and take them into school later on.

Fact = nit nurses aren't effective
Fact = head lice have been around as long as man and are found wherever people live together, not just schools ffs. You might as well hold schools responsible de eradicating the common cold. It's a nuisance for sure but this competitive disgust some parents get into is ridiculous. As for the poster who described the mum destroying anything she couldn't wash, that's laughable. It makes as much sense as burning all your carpets after seeing ants in your house.

Amieesmum

I think you are a wonderful person. All you did for that child. I am sure you made such a difference to her life.

hair straightners are also wonderful invention for getting rid of nit eggs - burn the bugge*s

In the policitcally incorrect olden days, when I was a girl, Nitty Nora Flea Explorer used to come around the class every once in a while and at the end of the school day certain kids used to get publicly humiliated handed a letter to take home for their parents.

Poor kids. I remember sitting there thinking 'don't give me a letter, don't give me a letter...' They never did, but it put the fear of god in me.

My kids are always lice free in the holidays, and then on returning to school they pick them up again. We used to use Hedrin - nasty stuff - I came up in huge lumps. We now use the nitty gritty comb - wonderful. But saying that, 2 days later they have them again. It's almost impossible to get rid of them - I don't even think it's other people's fault - it's just a never ending circle. Maybe we should relax and allow our kids to have them while still young or make kids wear shower caps for a while - that would solve it!

I don't think any treatment actually gets rid of the eggs, so constant combing (like twice a day) is probably the best.

Oh, I also think it's wrong to send a child home to "treat" - yes, the lice will die but not the eggs - and remember - your child caught them off someone else - it's not a crime.

And finally, we didn't get lice at school because we weren't in the middle of an epidemic - nothing more than that.