To think schools should take nits more seriously?

[Eurydice84]

Since January I have had to treat DD (and the rest of the family) for head lice several times. We follow all the recommended steps, wash bedding and clothing, and repeat the treatment after one week. The buggers seem to go away but then they're back again. It's likely that they're going around the school, and it only takes one kid to pass them on to the others. I am at my wits' end, it's impossible to coordinate 50 parents to treat at the same time, and the school doesn't allow absences for head lice. They don't seem to care at all, honestly. I have spent so much time and money trying to get rid of the problem, but there is no point if the school doesn't make it a priority as well. I also think head lice treatment should be subsidised, it's terribly expensive (£10 a bottle, and we need at least two for each treatment). AIBU?

I never found nits on mine but actual lice crawling around. Only thing that got rid of them was a zapper from Argos.

I think this is one of this topics that there is a generational divide on.

When I was going through school (Gen X/US) elementary schools (primary) did not allow children in school with nits or lice. There weren’t regular checks but if a child was suspected of having them they’d be checked immediately and sent home. Then the rest of the kids would be checked and any found with them would also be sent home. Kids would be checked upon coming back to school and for an amount of time after in case of a recurrence.

This lasted into the mid to late 90’s when all of a sudden the practice was verboten.

Honestly.. I think it was effective because it forced parents to deal with the problem vs. doing a half-assed job and letting their kid pass it on.

I apparently got off easy because my mum told stories of lice outbreaks and kids heads/hair was doused in kerosene to make they didn’t have them. And she grew up in the poorest of poor regions.

So yeah, I’m a person that thinks lice and nits are disgusting and a marker of poor hygiene… because when I was growing up it was!

Quite honestly I think it's the conditioner thing that's made it all so rife. If you miss a couple in that goop it all starts again. Kill them.

Why- do nits have interesting opinions?

Much cheaper version is Listerin mouthwash.

Drench hair in mouthwash. Put all hair under shower cap for 15 minutes. Wash as normal.

Repeat every 2-3 days.

My dd had waist length thick hair and this worked brilliantly on her. The nits just floated off.

Oh and another generational thing… give your kid a perm. I half think that the popularity of perms for kids in the 80’s is that it was a sure fire way to kill off anything living in the vicinity of hair… now that I think about it there was usually an uptick in perms anytime there was a lice outbreak.

Now there’s an interesting study to be done.

One school or one person’s experience doesn’t represent a country. I went to school in the UK and never had nits. I don’t recall anyone in my school having them. Neither of my siblings have had them. My child and my niephlings have never had them either. I taught in several schools in China for six years; I didn’t hear of any outbreaks there either.

Why is everything the schools responsibility? They are there to educate children.
It’s up to the parents to treat their child for nits.

Lice found? Child sent home. (Yes, I know they can't).

Sometimes the lice are obvious but you are not allowed to actually look for them any more. I was an Early Years teacher for over 30 years and avoided them by
a) not getting my head too close to any of the children - which can be hard when listening to them read
b) doing the hair conditioner and nit comb thing every single time I washed my hair just to be on the safe side.

The two times my daughter had them I contacted the parent of the child she had been spending all her time with to check them for nits as they had had head to head contact. Also the school can put it in their news letter about how nits are going round and can people please check their kids regularly. Also make sure if you have girls tie their hair up

It'll be the alcohol. My daughter had bad nits and I finally got rid by dousing g her hair and scalp in perfumers alcohol

No chance of grandparents infecting my kids...

Yes back in the 70s we had school nurses & they used to do regular checks for nits, give out multivitamin medicine, check teeth etc. I remember being shown how to wash hands too. There might be some children who have parents incapable of teaching them how to get rid of nits & maybe having that basic care in school is the only place they will get it. For some children school really is a safe space.

Some parents should take nits more seriously.
Schools have enough to do already.

@Katemax82
It is the alcohol. We used to say we made the nits drunk so they couldn't hold on!

Another vote for tea tree shampoo. Original Source used to do a mint and tea tree shampoo and conditioner (not sure if they still do, think maybe is just shower gel now?), but nits used to hate that stuff. It was much more pleasant and cost effective to use on a regular/daily basis than treatments.

Presumably that's because you don't see them, don't have any or because they're bald then. My point stands.

Unless you've been living under a rock presumably you've heard that schools are skint? Some are resorting to a 4 day week, vital building repairs are not happening and many schools are making TA's and admin staff redundant. Staff who are leaving are not being replaced. So who is going to pay for a Nurse to come into school regularly to de-louse children? There is no 'nit budget' that we can tap into, sadly.

As for not allowing children back in school until they're nit free, I'm afraid if we did that there would be a few children we never saw again, and those are the children who most need to be in school due to their vulnerability. That's leaving aside the fact that we can't simply exclude children for any reason that takes our fancy, there are quite strict rules around that sort of thing.

Believe me, school staff don't want to be catching nits and taking them home to our families. The responsibility lies with parents and we cannot force them to give a shit so your frustration, while understandable, is entirely mis-directed.

Ime it tends to be one family who won’t do anything about the issue, who constantly re infect the rest of the class.

The pupils at my school whose parents don’t treat their nits are the ones that are perpetually flagged as having concerns with their attendance. If schools said they couldn’t come in when they had nits, their attendance would be dire and nits given as a perpetual excuse.

Unfortunately, school nursing services like all other NHS services have been utterly decimated over the last decade. In many areas of the country they have also been privatised as NHS trusts could not compete with private providers promising to run them for pittance, and so those services are now run with far fewer, less qualified staff offering a fraction of the 'face to face' interventions they used to offer. In our locality it all takes place via text, phone or pre-recorded online workshops now and school nurses have no direct contact with children or families at all.

I used to do the treatment and then do the conditioner and nit comb every day for 7 days at which point we were usually clear. If we found anything in that 7 days, then we started again with the 7 days. I then kept a very fine mist spray bottle by the door with water and a few drops of tea tree oil.in it and we just spritzed on the way out every morning. With 3 children, only had 2 bouts of it in primary.

Presumably you are aware that schools don’t have nurses like that any more and none of those things happen now?

And much earlier in the thread I posted some article saying that the presence of the nit nurses didn't have much impact anyway.