To think lockdown has been a huge headlouse eradication opportunity and we will soon see who hasn't treated their kids

[NoIDontWatchLoveIsland]

We've all had it. You keep bloody combing out the bloody lice and they just keep catching them again at school. Every one blames everyone else.

But if we've maintained proper social distance and continued to treat through lockdown, the critters should have taken a serious hit. Anyone who has been in lockdown and still has them now - Please realise you were the problem and you need to learn to treat properly.

AIBU

Headline eradication should totally have been key measure #6 for easing of lockdown restrictions

*headlice even

Keepwashing
It really should. I hope they are tracking the R rate for lice.

Children aren’t neglected for having nits. Anyone could catch them.

The neglect is not treating aggressively as soon as you know. Yes, it can mean hours of combing and washing every day, sometimes for days on end. It just has to happen.

I don't know how anyone can allow their DC live with them untreated.
They definitely avoid certain heads neither of my 2 have ever had them I use Alberto tea-tree shampoo during school term.
I don't think our school has a huge problem with lice as we all get letter I haven't had a letter in a long time.

Nits are really, really uncomfortable and unpleasant. It should be an absolute basic parenting task to check and get rid of them. Along with providing suitable food, hygiene, clothing etc. Anything else is a cop out.

@francienolan

Where I grew up (not the UK) you would get sent home if the school nurse found nits or lice. Do they just let children stay for the rest of the day here? Surely it's so itchy and uncomfortable

There is no nit nurse anymore. Not where we are, anyway.

@ForeverBubblegum I'm sorry you had to deal with it as a DC constant lice with unkempt clothes can be big sign of neglect
I was a scruffy looking DC too my DM was loving she was often depressed, these days I mostly look well but it never really leaves you. I think it makes us more aware of the DC who need a boost every cloud and all that.

Itching just reading this, and we are definitely nit free, I'm a serial nit checking ninja freak.

Thanks camp.
Will investigate nitwit.
Dd is asd too.
Tolerates a comb if I can bribe her enough.
Usually sitting in garden with iPad.
One side of her head is easy to do. The other gets the screams. As she can only brush one side properly.
Sometimes I can get the other side without it sounding like I am killing her.

On the blood theory - my DD9 has never had nits, tics, mosquito bites or flea bites despite sharing space with others who have. I absolutely think there is something in the idea that some people are just bug repellent!

@PicsInRed

The usual offenders will be spraying lovely, gentle, natural scented bollocks on the kids hair and professing that their kids don't have lice.

We all know who they are and their kids will spread lice the 2nd they return. why do the boys in these families always have longer hair for maximum spreadability?!

So true

I have no judgement whatsoever for the busy parents, the parents with chaotic home lives and the parents with not enough money for Hedrin/bottles upon bottles of conditioner/nitty gritty combs/etc who are just making do with cheap plastic nit combs.

I do get very judgemental over the stay at home parents covering their children in expensive crap that does not work, then flogging this same expensive crap to other parents whilst their children’s hair is visibly crawling with nits.

@KeepWashingThoseHands

Headline eradication should totally have been key measure #6 for easing of lockdown restrictions

Yes 🤣🤣🤣

It's not just the herbal bollocks though - it's also people thinking that lice are resistant to all treatments and therefore the only option is to comb with conditioner.

I mean, yes, they're resistant to pesticides but they're not resistant to hedrin and the like - you can't be resistant to being suffocated! Combing alone with no other treatments has a success rate of just over 50% but I know so many people who think it's the best way and that it's impossible to buy any effective treatment at all and so they persist with it even though it's really really easy to miss just one nit and then you're off again. You have a much better chance if you hedrin and then comb because at that point you're picking up only the ones that avoided the soaking.

Are there really people who stand at the gates and dish blame or gossip over this?
I'm afraid there are. I, as a teacher, have been aggressively accused of actually giving children headlice and that it is my responsibility to get rid of them. We weren't allowed to examine children but if we saw a child scratching or visibly crawling we would have a quiet word with the parent concerned and send a letter to other parents. In the past children were sent home but not for a long time.

My child had bits once when she was 18 months old. She caught it off my stepchildren who were at school and their Mum was lax about treating them.

We got rid of them and she’s now in year one and never had them, but there’s only 4 children in her class and 100 in the whole school so it’s easier to control with less kids.

I agree with you though, if they treated them at the start and got rid all kids should go back lice free

@DamnedIfIDo I agree.

My sister and I never ever had head lice, despite her working in a nursery for 20 years. We never had them as children and I never got them even when my stepchildren kept having them and passed them on to my daughter. They just do not seem to like our hair!

Chemicals didn't work on my kids so I was one of the derided 'natural' brigade.
Nitty gritty comb for all of them every day until they were gone. Then twice weekly until the next infestation arrived - always via the same source.

Somehow both DD (14) and DS (7) have avoided bits so far.

Almost disappointed as Ihave an out of date bottle of Hedrin and an unused nitty gritty which I bought years ago in anticipation of the inevitable infestation.

It must be DPs blood line they dont like. Hes never had them but I had them lots as a child

My niece ALWAYS had nits. My sister was continually treating them, painstakingly combing nieces hair, yet niece continued to 'catch' nits.
My sister bitterly complained about parents who didnt treat their DC and was determined to discover the culprit/s.
Eventually, after a number of years, she discovered she wasnt treating them effectively, so it was the same ones breeding. She would comb out the adult headlice until she couldnt find anymore, sometimes, she would comb for a week, and then forget until nieces head was itching again.
I often think about my nieces battle with headlice when I read threads such as this one.