To wonder whether other kids mums may check DD for headlice at school & send her home without my consent?

[Mumpsnett]

Head Lice check is done by some mum volunteers at school, NOT by nurses....they reserve the right to send kids home if "lice are found", or what they think qualifies as such. There are lots of false positives obviously. I'm fuming!!! Should I complain???

Other people (volunteers) have to do it because of skanky lazy parents who can't be arsed

Checking won't change the fact the child isn't treated.

You should be grateful they are reducing the infection and actively keeping your child not free

So they made a mistake -stuff happens

The reason I wouldn't go to a gp is that it's fairly straightforward to detect head lice. There's plenty of guidance online on what to look out for and nit combing methods. It doesn't need a medical professional to diagnose.

That said, perhaps some schools in Belgium require an "all clear" from the gp before returning to school?

Why wouldn't you, Soupdragon, if you wanted to?

Because it’s utterly bonkers. You check yourself and go buy nit stuff from the shop. It doesn’t require a doctor to tell you if your child has lice.

doncha you just want to put a big red cross on the front door of parents who cannot be bothered to treat their kids.. I wonder what they will do if their kids lack of treatment results in impetigo. Something to look forward to sheesh...

OfaFrenchMind2

Are their children going to be sent home endlessly or what does the school propose to do then?

Ours can't come back until treated

I would love to happen at our school. Then maybe those lazy mothers would think twice about infecting the whole goddamn school.

The main problem with head lice is more that parents are not treating the nits properly rather than they can't be bothered to treat them at all.

I refuse to believe that there are many parents that don't treat their dc at all. It would turn into an infestation and infect the whole family, eventually resulting in sores on the head and neck.

The main problem is that if a couple of tiny nits are left, the parents think their child is nit free but after a couple of weeks, they have a new crop of lice. ( and are angry that they must have caught them again)!

Head lice are becoming more resistant to chemical treatments so it's easy to fall into that cycle.

There are kids, all of the same family, who carry head lice all year round in my kids school. You can see the eggs when you talk to them. They are always scratching. The lice infect other children, inevitably. I comb my kids' hair every three or four days. I would love their parents' to be told in no uncertain terms to treat their children's head lice. DH regards it a public health issue.

AAAhhhh can only imagine the long and winding road to utter humiliation!

What a god awful idea, do they get to pass notes at meetings on just how many makes an infestation....hideous......(heave)

Who the hell 'volunteers' to do this?????? Would anyone even?

flatpacker

The SCHOOL should be addressing this, robustly, NOT other parents!

Did you consent to this? They either have nits or not, dont get the false positive.

In england you are not allowed to touch childrens heads that's why there is no nit nurse any more it is classed as abuse (stupid i know)

Wow. A mum who volunteers to do a pretty hideous job at school, trying to eradicate nits is a "stupid cow".
I really don't understand the problem???Someone - a 'mum' ( I am a mum, most of us on here are probably mums) checks children's heads in order to prevent nits spreading ?? And people are offronted by it? Complaining about it? Raging about it?
Even if she did make a mistake.... Why is it such a biggie??? I'd be grateful for a nit check at school.

I just couldnt hold it in any longer...sent a mail to school saying I dont give my consent to D's being checked by anyone else than a nurse.
Which means they'll probably not repeat this experience, and as they cant afford to get a nurse in on a weekly basis to check the kids, the kids and their lice will go unchecked in the future. So there. probably it wasnt the most "community-minded" thing to do... but it was just stronger than me!

Wouldn't bother me personally. I'd just check it myself following such a letter and treat as required. Why on earth would you go to the GP?

the kids and their lice will go unchecked in the future.

I would love this at my DC's school!

Out of interest, why is it forbidden for teachers (or other school staff) to check the children's hair in the UK? What harm can be done? Sorry maybe I am missing something...

Well aren't you a charmer OP

I think it's really hard as an incomer. You see everything through that lens, and everyone seems to see you through it too.

For example, the doctor's receptionist here in the Netherlands asked me to undress my 4 year old in the waiting room and weigh her right there in just her pants. My four year old said 'no', and I agreed, so I explained that DC would be weighed without coat and shoes, but otherwise dressed. But the receptionist questioned me and I questioned myself. If it had been in the UK, I would just have... not done it. I would have been confident in my decision and just got on with it.

What I'm saying, OP, is that it's OK to do things your way. No one's going to die. The awkwardness will fade. You're allowed to object to something like this which just isn't working for you.

Who the hell 'volunteers' to do this??????

Speaking as the parent of a child who goes months getting treated and combed for lice every other day because of lazy parents who ignore their child's infestation, it would genuinely be easier for me to go into nursery do a sweep and treat of the children on two occasions a week apart. I'd happily volunteer rather than spend my evenings sorting DD's hair because another parent won't do the same for their child.

FlatPacker Maybe there is a family at your child's school who are crawling with nits but I find it uncomfortable to hear parents pointing the finger and blaming "skanky" parents for their child's nits.

I've had 3 children at primary and have heard time and again how parents know "the source" of the nits and gossiping.
The fact is nits are prevalent in primary schools up and down the land. Blaming it on the "Smith" family feels like playground behaviour and can result in those children being bullied and ostracized at school.

In this case, I am not convinced it is ok for the op to do things "her way" because the objective of the entire exercise depends on every single child being checked.

I genuinely don't understand the problem. Surely it's better that everyone is checked, even if a few mistakes are made, for the good of the whole?

Well if your daughter hasn't got nits now you better keep checking. Now that the volunteers are banned from doing a community spirited headlice check you might find you get plagued.

And wrt the humiliation front, no one is judging or gossiping (well they weren't in dd's school). Ime, they just tend to be very upfront and pragmatic and practical about these things here. DC accept it as entirely normal (unless their parents make a fuss.)