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???

Don’t know why you couldn’t tell them if they are really obvious. Other kids tell teachers sometimes, so you can just say that they have reported it. I would have considered it part of the schools care for children.

I think you might have to be sensitive to pick8ng on one particular group of kids or family.

HT used to check for headlice in dd's primary.You could opt out if you chose or children could refuse. He would just send a text if he found anything and would enable any parent struggling with cost of treatment by referring to local health clinic who would provide lotions and combs for free.
Dd never caught them in that primary school where they were rife in her previous one.
I think it's useful to have the whole school checked and treated as one but I'm not sure I'd want another parent checking tbh.

MuffinTip I think it depends entirely on school policy. I would have thought it plausible to contact the community public health nurse (school nurse) who works with the schools in your area?
It makes no sense to me to ignore a poor child riddled with head lice. That relies on her parents co operating though.

I know some schools have a policy of parents signing their child's homework book to report that they've been nit combed!

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)

According to the nhs and the doe we don’t have nit nurses because they do not prevent a public health issue

We were told at my school (Uk) that we weren't even allowed to tell parents that any children in school had headlice so we just send a generic letter home to the whole school that gives NHS guidelines on how to treat. There is a child in my class whose head is crawling with lice but the headteacher said I couldn't say anything to the parents. Anyone know if that's correct?

The guidance states that the letter to everybody approach that was popular for a few years shouldnt be used because it creates am impression that a school is lice ridden but that a parent should be tactfully informed and offered treatment guidance in the form of a handy nhs print out

I thought it was money that meant we did not have not nurses. I remember when lots of the school nursing was cut, and not nurses was one thing cut.
And nits used to be rare in school. I don't remember ever getting nits at school and when I was a young adult and worked with kids from very neglected backgrounds, I only ever came across 1 girl whose hair was crawling with nits.

I think it was concluded that Nit nurses were a waste of money because they weren't thorough enough so were actually creating a worse problem.
Parents weren't checking their own children because there was a nit nurse who casually peered at their dry hair every month or so. It didn't work.

So why are there now more nits?

Nits have now evolved to be increasingly resistant to any modern treatments. Most lice have developed a high resistance to the treatments advised by doctors or schools.

The treatment works initially in that lice are less evident (some are killed off) but some eggs or stronger lice remain so the cycle isn't broken completely. In fact the stronger lice create a survival of the fittest scenario so you end up with a more and more resistant strain.

Okay thanks for that, I hadn't realised.

Isn't it possible that a louse, or couple of love, had recently landed on OPs, DDs head and were found by the mum, but it hadn't yet turned into an infestation?

But the recommend treatment now is just loads of conditioner and combing and combing through the hair. My pharmacist said the chemical solutions don't work. The problem is parents being lazy and doing a half job of it. My DD has shoulder length hair and when she caught nits at school, I spent 2 hours combing through her hair, then the same the next day, then checked again a week later.

Yeah you're right Estella that is unfortunately the only effective treatment. So for very thick, long or afro hair it's a nightmare.

I'm predicting Nit salons where you pay someone to spend hours combing through your child's hair while they're entertained by You Tube on giant screens to start popping up very soon on the High Street.
A lot of parents don't have the time or inclination to spend an hour on their child's hair every week.

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

School can't afford to pay for a nurse unless you're offering?

Why a nurse? Surely any parent used to dealing with nits and trustworthy can do this?

Nits aren't resistant to the treatments with silicone in them - they work by smothering them, so they can't become resistant (although nitty gritty combing with conditioner was very effective on my DC's awful infestation (6 foot teenager who must have had them for months)

Something like Hedrin that suffocated the nits is good but still eggs can remain that will eventually start the cycle again so you have to repeat the treatment each week or comb out remaining which some people fail to do.

I loved the silicone based nit treatment when I did it on myself. I've never had such glossy swishy hair