Really annoyed.. School mum..wwyd?

[Theamericanz]

My dd is friends with a child in school who has recurrent headlice. The school mum is an acquaintance through our dds & every time her daughter gets a dose of the lice she texts me rather accusingly to "check my daughters hair". I do this weekly & she is always in the clear. She isn't texting any other mums as I've asked a close friend from the class... I'm actually getting very upset over the constant messages! Aibu? What do I reply.. Tonight I said "dds out at a match, I'll check when she gets in".. She saw the message didnt reply.. I dutifully checked dds hair with the nitty gritty all clear.. I text back "dds hair all clear. Best of luck treating your dd". Read n reply. Aibu to be seriously pissed off & where do we go from here. My dd is not the culprit!

"Katie hasn't had nits for three years, I do check weekly and use preventative spray which luckily seems to have kept them away. Have you told school so they can ask everyone to check? Though as Lucy has had them so many times recently it sounds like you aren't getting rid of them completely. Did you know that you need to repeat the treatment after a week to catch the ones that are just hatching?"

Helpful with a clear message that the issue isn't your daughter/parenting and a hint of passive aggression ...

She is probably assuming it's your daughter because of her very long swishy hair (and because the girls are quite close). Some mums seem to have a real bee in their bonnet about it being "silly" and "too much work" to let little girls grow their hair long. My son had long hair for most of primary school and I was always being asked when he was going to get it cut off and wasn't I worried about nits, though he only had them once at nursery and then not again until snogging A level stage.

Reply and say that your daughter hasn't got nits but she needs to inform the school so they can notify all parents to check their child's hair.

It sounds as if you are on top of it for your daughter Op.

Mine had them years ago.

We were informed that someone in the class had them.

We didn't notice anything when we checked our daughter!

They were checked at school & found!

We obviously treated her & there was no return nor was there ever any notice of them being in the class again.

It does sound as if she isn't treating them properly.

Of course it's not a given that she's getting them from the school class as you would have hoped that the other parent would have notified the school if so!

This is brilliant.

I don’t think it’s possible to point to a source of nits accurately when there are multiple rounds going on. A child’s own bike helmet is an unlikely source as the eggs and louse can’t survive long in that environment. If it was passed from child to child instantly then maybe…

the ‘preventative’ sprays only work based on making the hair slightly ‘dirtier’ and less attractive to nits. Any leave on product would probably be equivalent. When combing with a nitty gritty, you really need to comb through white conditioner and wipe on a white cloth to be sure that there are
no eggs or lice. They are hard to see otherwise.

Are you an anxious person in general? It's really not normal to lose sleep as a result of receiving a text message. Particularly one as benign as 'check your child's hair for nits'.

If it's policy to inform the school and this person has told you their child has them, you've said you won't share through the class WhatsApp group but why don't you let the teacher know? They can then send out the blanket message and it doesn't have to have come from you.

I’d reply again saying “Thinking about this more, your DD seems to have had nits a few times over the past few months but I’ve not seen any notification from the school about an outbreak. Just checking you’ve let them know so all parents can be informed to check?”

If it happens again, I would set it out to the mum in those terms. “This is the eighth time you have said this to me. I check dd every week and she is consistently clear of nits, possibly due to the effective stuff I use that I have shared with you. The protocol is to tell school so wider info can be shared. That you single me out in such a persistent way is now veering into bullying/harassment. Please stop.”

And also go to the school- they can also remind her of the protocol and keep an eye on the children in case this mum’s attitude starts seeping into classroom interactions.

All of this - or just ignore. Some parents are very precious, it's best to ignore/don't engage with them.

It's probably just really irritated the OP. We can all get disproportionately annoyed about things at times especially when we want to go to sleep :)

send her that link to the stuff you use and say "this works really well DD hasn't had nits at all in the recent outbreaks at school"

Obviously people talk to friends about things other people have said. It’s called communication.

No I'm not but this is the 7th message Ive recieved in the past 18 months from the same woman regarding nits. It's very frustrating as we are very much on top of it & my daughter is not the culprit.

I send a photo last night when I got the usual text.

How patronising. Wouldn’t it be great if women tried to understand and support other women instead of trying to make them feel crap.

I would say "we've not had nits for 3 years now and I'm scrupulous about checking DDS hair.. It doesn't sound like you're treating the nits fully". Hopefully it'll shut her up.

Thanks for the heads up to be watchful. We've been so lucky for 3 years! I think that's because we have this preventative routine in place :........ Hope that works for you too x

I'd be a little less diplomatic at this point
X I know you only text me re headline, if you think they are coming from dd then you are totally wrong as we use xyz and she hasn't had them in 3 years. If you are looking for tge source of lice look elsewhere.
Then she will come back and deny it but at least you won't keep getting the same passive aggressive messages.

’dd does not have them, but thanks for letting me know’ and then just ignore her/try not to give it any more thought.

I can completely understand how annoying this is - when ds was at primary school, twins in his class almost constantly had nits. The mum was a gp, and sent emails to the class informing us how to properly check for nits and reminding us to do it properly. The only time DS ever had nits was when he was sat next to one of the twins in class. And while he was sat by them, as well as the class emails the mum was sending out, she also obtained phone numbers for all of the parents on her twins class tables and bombarded us with messages, asking us not only to do checks, but also to know the results. I expect she was probably really stressed about the constant nits I’m their house, but the messages always came across as being really accusatory and blaming everyone else. They moved school at some point, and the nit problem left with them!

So shrug it off and don't let it get to you. You know your dd isn't the issue, just ignore. Block her if it bothers you that much.

Well I offered a suggestion? How is that not supporting other women?

Block her

I would send a message saying “ Thanks for the warning! Checked DD’s hair and still all clear. Three years and counting nit free, vigilance, weekly nitty gritty and xxxxx spray really pays off!”

Why don’t you message today and say, ‘sorry to hear that your DD has head lice again, sounds like she’s really struggling with them. If it helps we’ve been using this stuff. My dd had them a few years ago. We did olive oil over night (so messy 😭) & 4 weeks of wet combing which was so time consuming but worked. Since we've been using spray in conditioners with tea tree & we havn't had a case since.’

Just send a short sharp message back. 'No lice'.