To be Peed off with some of the other parents?

[ReginaFalange]

I am sick and tired of a letter in my DS bookbag asking parents to check our childs hair this evening as there is a child in the class with lice. Now am AMIBU in thinking that these parents of the children with the lice (we know who it is) are too god damn lazy to do something about it? My son has had lice before I admit but I treated everyone as soon as they appeared. What is wrong with some people? (My son also goes to a school where the parents are quite well off so the parents cannot say they cannot afford to buy the stuff!!!)

Love your name!
Some people are lazy and don't bother treating their kids. Not much you can do about it though, really.

part of childhood i think,
just accept it. deal with it and cross fingers everyone deals with it.

You are NOT being unreasonable.

We went through a period of my DSDs coming EVERY week crawling in nits and spending a good amount of each weekend with all of us plastered in nit shampoo....

What gets me is that I'm sure it's exactly these parents who rant on about dogs etc, but my dog never has fleas, nits or mites - I make sure of it!

My DSDs changed schools and it's no longer a problem for us!

YANBU!

loving the name
but I bet I could beat you in a friedns trivia contest

bring back the nit nurse I say

Well, if your child hashad headlice then presumably you told the school so other paretns could check their children to see if they had been infected before you noticed and treated. What makes you think this isn't the same situation?

I'm up for the Friends trivia quiz!!!!

I reckon I could trounce most people I watch the blardy show so much!!!

Hi yes I told the teacher (god I aint that bad) it could be the same situation but it's always the same child with them. They must be a carrier or something honest.

I could beat a few of you's at it.

At our school the policy states clearly that if your child has head lice you come and pick them up and sort it before sending them back. I have no problem with this - I spent YEARS doing the "comb every three day" thing for DS2 with the snottiest, most up herself mum of 3 in our UK school cheerfully telling everyone that she couldn't be arsed to sort her kids' headlice as they just kept on getting them again Unfortunately her twins were in DS2's class.

But, as headlice spread around a class like wildfire, how do you know who's the root cause at any one time? If your child has them, s/he could be the one infecting others until you've got rid of them (which takes a while, however frequently you treat/comb/condition). You're seldom going to get to a stage where everyone is clear at the same time. Why blame one family?

Invite the vhild with live round to your house. Do the treatment.

It amazes me that in britain they can't approach parents directly to ask them to deal with their child's nits, it has to be a general letter, and the nitty children can't be asked to stay at home until it's all gone..all because it's apparently discriminatory. Completely ridiculous. At ds's school the mum gets a phone call within 5 mins of nits being found, and when they get to the school to pick up, son or daughter is waiting in reception area to go home. A letter goes to all the parents to check their child, but as far as possible anyone who actually has it is asked to stay away until totally clear. Surely this makes much more sense? Leaving children in class with nits is surely putting the OTHER children at a disadvantage, isn't it better to get rid of the problem with the possibility of a bit of embarrassment (hopefully handled sensitively) rather than let everyone get it, and everyone will know who had it to start with anyway???

I think that some children are inherently more prone to lice. I often wonder if there is an immune system effect, as mine have only ever had them when they are run down. It is true that some parents refuse/ can't see lice in their children's hair, but others just aren't any good at seeing them (my husband can't at all). Some children have hair that is very difficult to lice comb or check properly- very curly or thick.

The only thing you can do is keep lice at bay on yours. They are very common, and just one of the mild annoyances of sending your child off to a place with lots of other children every day. If your child does get them, it generally means they are playing well with others, as they lice can only crawl from one head to another, so loners tend not to get them (unless they're caught in a head lock given by a lousy child... but that's another story entirely).

Kitbit... but how on earth would you know who had them to start with? There is no "start with." It's an on-going cycle - everyone must have got them from somebody else!

Actually, Clam, if you lined up a class of untreated/ un-nit-combed children, and examined their hair, you could tell who got them first among that group- assuming that human hair grows at roughly the same speed in pretty much everyone, those with egg cases the furthest down the hair shaft would have been infected earliest. The lice prefer to lay eggs closest to the scalp where it's nice and warm.

Obviously though, you couldn't who infected whom. As you say, after a while, it's self-perpetuating. Clever little buggers.

I understand that clam, but for example in ds's school because each time an outbreak happens it is effectively stopped, we have long periods where nobody has them. If someone catches them and brings them back to the school, it doesn't take a genius to work out where it started because there is a starting point iyswim. Not that I'm saying sayone sits there and whispers about who they think it was because of course we don't! But if your child is the one who "started" it, you might feel a bit embarrassed thinking everyone knows. So you might as well be embarrassedby having to collect your child because at least then the embarrassment isn't compounded by guilt at having given them to everyone else, and no-one else's Mum is therefore unhappy with you!

ime some people have them chronically- watch for the ones scratching randomly! (am just remembering the boy we took on holiday whose mother thought he had a sensitive scalp, but he turned out to have about 15 generations living on his head at the same time...)

urrrrgghhhhhhh!!! am really itchy now!

Yes, but.... you can't just ring-fence one class. The "originator" must still have got them from someone else - possibly a sibling who's in a class with a sibling of someone else in the 1st class and so on... blahdeblah. And duchesse, even if you identify the kid with eggs cases furthest down the shaft, they could have got those from someone else (in the class) who's had their cases removed, or their hair cut or something. It's just not as clearcut as saying (or thinking) "oh, it's that kid who's always "infecting" everyone else." It implies neglect on the parent's part as if they're unclean in some way. Whereas few of us are immune from it. It's a fact of life in classrooms.

Aside from the actual lice themselves, you have to wonder why they do waste the paper, ink, time and effort continually sending out these peices of paper.
You have to assume that there will always be lice in school, so you always need to check on a regular basis.

Yes, but....
All I'm saying is that within ds's class it's possible to guess. Of course, the child who brings it to the class will have caught it somewhere else, sibling, whatever, but within the group it's quite obvious. If each class does the same, and sends children home when they find them it helps to contain the problem. And it does work - at the moment the school is nit free, and has been for about 3 months. They've only had 2 outbreaks this year and each time it was stopped within a week. Not possible unless you're going to send kids home.

just oil your children's hair and comb through with a nit comb.

tie-back for school, easy-peasy!