To stand at the school gates giving out nit combs and nit repellant?

[deemented]

Oviously i can't really do that, but you get the gist

I noticed on Sunday night that DS2 was itching and checked his head and he had lice. OK, fair enough, every kid gets them. Did him, DD, DS3 and manshape with Full Marks and a Nitty Gritty comb. Did myself with conditioner as i'm pregnant. Washed all the bedding. Make sure DS2 was nit free. Checked him again Monday morning and he was clean.

Checked him when he came home yesterday and he had nits again. Did him with full marks again (hadn't realised you weren't supposed to do it more than once a week) Checked everyone again and we were all clear.

Spoke to his teacher who said she'd inform the office and a letter would be sent home to parents asking them to check their kids hair.

Before sending DS2 to school today, i checked his hair again and he was clean. Guess what he came home with??? So i've had to condition his hair and got to it with a nitty gritty again.

I'm so fucking sick of it though - how difficult it is to check your childs hair and treat the lice? Hell you can get full marks and a nitty gritty on perscription if need be!!

Short of shaving all his hair off, i don't know what else i can do. Bloody sick of it.

AIBU to want to tell all the kids parents in his class to check their bloody kids hair?

i AM SICK OF IT ASWELL - sorry caps on (but appropriate shouting )

I fancy the water spray bottle and lavender idea I read on a thread last night, now you could do that by stealth

YANBU to want to do it but YABU if actually think the culprits would actually use them.

I actually considered sending out a letter to parents offering to check every child in DD's class and treating them all myself after DD had them for the millionth time!!

yanbu - i am a teacher and sat next to a child today absolutely crawling with lice. We're not really supposed to speak to parents individually about them, but I did anyway. They looked at me as if I crazy, and sort of shrugged as if to say "and...?"

which repellent do you use OP?

stop im itching now

bring back the nit nurse -
kids all went to be checked, some did not come back to classroom but got sent home and were not allowed back until they HAD NO NITS
bollocks to all the PC brigade

Not unreasonable at all. As you're pregnant, why not outsource it? Sheep shearing season is coming to an end, so plenty of tough young men (muscled, good-looking and with a faintly animal smell): get them to shave all the kids whilst the mums swoon at their feet. Sorted, yes?

While I sympathise, having been there several times myself with my children, I have to say that the lice that you are finding are more likely to be ones that you have missed on your nit combing checks rather than a new infestation.

They are pretty hardy these bugs! I don't use any medicated stuff now, I just use condition with few drops of added tea tree oil and nit comb every other night if we have an infestation. For about 2 weeks then every week, I condition and nit comb to check. Just use the 50p nit combs from school or pharmacy.

I also section and go through the dry hair with my glasses on and remove any nits (eggs) and squish. I can now tell the difference between a live nit (ie one that will hatch into a louse) and an empty or nonviable nit! The live ones are plump and go pop! The empty ones are flat already. Also you can tell approx., from the location of the egg cases, how long the child has had them - nearer the scalp is recent and lower down the hair shaft means they have been there a while.

Also you can tell if there are likely to be more from the lice that you find nit combing - if you get big ones, they will have more likely than not already laid a fresh batch of eggs. If you are getting small ones, these have just hatched and probably not got round to egg laying, so if you are quick and thorough, you stand a good chance of catching them early. I think every 2-3 days is best until you are not getting any more eggs or finding live lice.

Sorry if this is TMI! There is no quick remedy, you have to be constantly alert. In my experience, the earlier you pick it up the quicker you are rid of them. Is the last thing you want to be doing! I also do a check at the end of every term and start back so I know that any infestation is only a few days old and also have a good idea where it was picked up! For my own peace of mind!
Good luck with the hunt!

Pilchard Persistent headlice is a clear neglect issue and is unlikely to be sole aspect of neglect. You are failing in your duty of care under CP not to address it. Couple of tricky visits from a Social Worker is a very good nit repellent.

Trukkin We've got a couple of gorgeous Maori shearers in the village right now: where shall I send them?

bring back the nit nurse!!

YANBU, I feel exactly the same way. At ds' school there's a letter home every week or so to the whole class saying 'there are lice in the class. Please check hair.'
Well there's obviously some parents who either can't read, can't be arsed to read or just don't give a toss and don't bother to check as I am getting bloody sick of ds getting nits lately - he's got lovely thick hair and got nits a few months back and I completely blitzed his whole head of the blighters.
Lo and behold, barely before the week was out he bloody had them back AGAIN!
Never mind all this handing out standard letters to all the parents to read as obviously some don't they need to take the parents of the nitty ones to one side and discreetly TELL them their child has lice so they can do something about it, as obviously some people just don't bother checking their children's head regularly!

KK Why tell them discreetly & risk a rash of verbals? Go with Life - just cut out the middleman and report them straight to SS yourself. Once word gets around that SS treat BAD nits as evidence of neglect, you'll be surprised at how fast they die out in your area...

In terms of your kids hair, tea tree seems to work quite well as a repellant.

Of course all parents should regularly check their kid's hair, and treat promptly and for as long as the infestation lasts.

However, my dd recently had them and I didn't realise until she had ABSOLUTELY loads and needed treatment and nightly combing for 2 weeks. I was surprised how long the combing took and how long I had to be doing it for, and it is possible that parents may not realise how long you have to comb for and for people working very long hours, it's actually hard to find the time in the day.

I'm not saying it's okay to let your kids have nits, but they were deffo more of a hassle than I thought they'd be.

deemented you can hand out the combs and stuff on condition you demonstrate by combing my DDs hair.
I comb and treat regularly, the nitty gritty gets out the nits ( the empty white ones and the unhatched browny ones as well as the adults and babies)
So I send her in with clean clear hair and she comes back with adult manky big lice. So in the space of a few hours she's managed to pick them up again.Grrrrr!
Just spent an hour this evening condition combing her and tomorrow will wash with Vosene repellant shampoo.
Just as well she finds the combing theraputic!

Um - Is anyone else really tempted to shave their DC's head????
Disclaimer DD is only 3 but a) her hair is getting quite long and b) she hates having it combed.
She is definitely getting it cut short asap...I dont care how many sweets I have to bribe her with.

(feels madly itchy)

Yes, i'm very tempted to cut DS2's hair. But my only concern with that is that he'd look a bit feral But cutting his haor may be the lesser of two evils - i'd hate to have to cut DD's long golden curls off or DS3's skitight corkscrew curls....

After denitting him last night i used the vosene shampoo with nit repellent, and then used the vosene tea tree spray as well. Will use that this morning too, and then wait to see what happens when he gets home from school.

A friend of mine had this problem, constant reinfestation despite treating her DD regularly. Compounded by the fact that she seemed to have some kind of allergy/sensititity that meant her head became v scabby and painful.

After a few confrontations with the teacher (of the "you have to feel sorry for the other child" "we cannot be specific when telling the parents") my friend sent her dd to school wearing a baseball cap (in school colours) and told the teacher that her DD wasn't to take the hat off in any circumstances.

It all went a bit pear shaped, HT threatened to suspend child for flouting the school dress code etc, friend said she'd remove child from school and tell LA exactly why and so on.

Upshot was that quite a few mums followed suit and HT decided that he could, after all, target the correct child/parent (but did do it kindly) and that hats would be allowed for a short period after a breakout.

Would your DC school be up for something like this?

I did resort to home buzz cuts for my sons when they were in primary school.
It did seem to work. I just ignored the 'looks' I got when we were visiting castles and NT! They looked like 3 little bovver boys in their denim jeans and white tops.

DD long curly hair was a nightmare to nit comb.

I don't know - but tbh i'd be concerned that DS2 and his friends would swap hats iyswim?

TBH i'm contemplating making an announcement before school when other parents are there dropping their kids off, asking them to please check and denit their kids hair if appropriate as i'm fecking sick of having to do my DS2's every night after school, only for him to be reinfested the next day.

Or would that be too in your face?

DD2 was plagued with them in primary school one girl always had them, I started using tea-tree shampoo and conditioner on the advice of my hairdresser she never got them again.

I hear you, I've no doubt friend gave daughter the 'not even under the pain of death' talk, but it would be hard to police!

In your face to say something yes, but really, do you care? I don't think I would. You could always start off with a general grumble, or a "wow, I've found a new shampoo with super powers" if you didn't want to be too direct. Or maybe target the loudest/most gossipy mum that you know will spread the word.

I'd be tempted to be direct, as if you are at the end of your tether, but then you are really, aren't you? Nits are horrible but touch wood since I started using the vosene shampoo and spray the next morning we've been relatively clear.

I've been using the vosesne shampoo for a good while now, and it had been working. Only ust got the spray last night so fingers crossed!

If it's that bad the school staff will be able to see adult lice in the DC hair!

I certainly could as a TA in a primary school. Our teachers did have a quiet word with one or two parents. They even gave out free shampoo to one family. Some don't look through DC hair even once a week.

I do think a quiet word from the class teacher would be less in your face. Not sure if the school nurse would 'target' certain families if the HT called her in. It might have changed since mine were at primary but our school nurse used to be in after school every few weeks so that parents could just pop in and chat.

Listen to Pengymum. She knows what she is talking about. It is IMPOSSIBLE to get rid of an infestation with one application of Full Marks. Also, I agree that some people are horribly remiss, but it isn't THAT easy to get re-infested; the creatures don't fly, so you need to bump heads for a few seconds.