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!

That's because if they did, all the children would coincidentally get headlice when holidays are cheapest.

I’m rather nonplussed by the level of rage you have about this (please don’t repeat the 7 times I’m 18 months thing yet again, it’s been noted). Even making the worst assumption about her motives this seems like an annoyance to brush off.

If she’s not notifying the school two they send out a class notice then ask her to do that. Then say “I always check X’s hair carefully when we get a class notice, so no need for an individual text. Sorry you’re dealing with them again.” Then if she ever sends one again don’t acknowledge it in any way. No need to escalate or one-up her (assumed) passive aggression or anything else. Why throw a match on a relationship that could affect your daughter’s friendship over some annoying texts?

my daughter has came home twice with lice and I have de-liced her each time. I put on her school chat and the message was ignored so I am waiting to see if she comes home with again and will go into school next and speak to them.

Why on earth don't you just block her if its affecting you so badly?
People can only upset you if you let them.

She's not catching them from someone else! She's just not getting rid and this is the next generation coming through. So just be honest:

"hi x, have checked DD, all clear again. If you've had 7 lots in a year it sounds like you're not getting fully rid each time rather than a new infestation. It's easily done as you've either got to be pretty forensic about treating again on the 10th day after the first dose to catch the ones that have hatched since the first treatment. Or comb every day for about 10 days until you've seen no more eggs for three days - it's always longer than you'd think!'

But you can see the message was read on WhatsApp so there's no point in a thumbs up or any kind of reply just for the sake of it.

As she is clearly a repeat offender (either in not treating her child for lice or singling you out for repeat text messages about it) I'd actually think that the gloves are off and I'd post in the class WhatsApp "I've been contacted by a parent advising me that there is an outbreak of lice in the class. Please check your child's hair and treat as appropriate. I'll let the teacher and head teacher know too."

I would have thought that as it is going around the class again, you'd be within your rights to see is this a public health concern and should the school be sending home a note with the pupils advising/suggesting treatments that work etc.

As a species, I can't understand how we haven't eradicated head lice as even being a 'thing' any more. Surely that would be such an easy thing to do.

At this stage I would try to let it go because it's clearly taking up too much head space.
However, if she does reply or messages you in the same vein next time her dd gets nits I would call her out. No passive-aggression or pretending to misunderstand.
I would say clearly 'the protocol is to inform school to warn of an outbreak. Have you done this, because I haven't received any emails to inform parents in the past (whatever timeline)?'

I wouldn't say 'it seems as though you are only telling me when your dd gets nits' because then she'll know you've been asking other mutual friends.

Ask her 'are you informing any other parents when your dd gets nits, or just me, because I'm starting to think you may believe my dd is the source of the problem. I'm sorry you're having a hard time getting rid of the wee bastards but the methods & products that I've already told you about I've used seem to be doing the trick. Best wishes.'

I don’t think it’s fair to characterise her as a repeat offender: some children are more susceptible to headlice and find it harder to eradicate them. All the olive oil, tea tree, Child’s Farm, snake oil, etc in the world didn’t work on DD and we were at her with the nitty gritty daily, through tears. We even had headlamps. Those little bastards have evolved to survive. What eventually worked for us was an expensive visit to a private nit specialist in London who literally vacuums the fuckers out of the hair, followed by a section by section combing under “hospital emergency surgery floodlights” lighting. It took hours and she still had to have a second visit because brand-new lice eggs are invisible to the naked eye. There were three when we returned. Then they were gone (sadly not forever but she did grow out of being their favourite playground and we also keep her hair pixie cut short as a preventative measure).

There’s no evidence to say this mum is repeat texting OP out of blame; she could well be hoping to prevent sharing the misery. DD and I were in tears daily for months and we spent 90% of our free time relentlessly combing and applying every potion under the sun.

Eradicating headlice as a thing isn’t so easy either: they lay invisible eggs (to start with), glue them to the scalp/hair shaft, the lice crawl at 23cm a minute and run from movement and light, they’re born sexless and pick a sex later on, so you only need 2 eggs leftover to start a colony, and the females only need to mate ONCE to then lay 10 eggs a day for a month. They also evolve to match hair colour to be harder to see, so if you see a blonde louse on dark hair or dark louse on light hair you know it’s a new passenger picked up from a play date rather than a locally born and bred one. (I did a lot of late-night doomscrolling during our unfortunate lice months.)

The fuckers have also all evolved to be immune to all the sprays and lotions: we found that they’d be stunned into submission from whatever stinky potion we applied, but it wouldn’t actually kill them. If anything, they’re getting harder to eradicate. And with the cozza living more people are going to rely on cheap conditioner and a comb than invest in two doses of Nit Begone or whatever; few people are going to be able to afford the vacuum treatment.

Not read the full thread but I would tell her that checking your DDs hair is a weekly routine.

We used a comb every Sunday night that zapped anything to ensure no infestations from other children

What can the school do ? They’re not allowed to check children for lice.

Whenever there was an outbreak of lice in my child's class, we got sent a note home to advise us that there was an outbreak in my child's class and we were to check our child ourselves and keep hair tied back and tidy.

No names of the source were ever made in the notes home but it was the responsibility of the parents to check.

Something like that should be within the realms of what the school can do and should do every single time there is an outbreak.

I know they aint allowed to check hair but they send letters out to advise the whole school to check.

I’d text her 6 times saying “My DD appears to have symptoms of Twat Disease tonight, can you check your DD for it as maybe she’s got it from you?”

Bring back nit nurses says I

Im so lucky as my 11yo and nearly 8yo have never had nits - but the thumb sucking little terrors have had worms more times than I’ve had hot dinners and it drives me mad

When this happens it’s usually the whole class who have it and adults. School can do nothing about it, can’t even inform the parent in my country!!

“Appreciate the info, X has been checked and is clear. No close playing for a while then? Let’s hope they are eradicated from all sufferers soon”

Get long hair into pleats and twisted into a bun.

If this child is getting repeated infestations then either the mum doesn’t know how to get rid of them or isn’t ensuring that the fresh batch of nits is eradicated. It takes up to 17 days to ensure the infestation has gone and everyone in the household needs to be treated at the same time. And many schools have a policy, as advised by NHS England, that any infestation be reported to the school so they can advise parents accordingly and avoid outbreaks. The school may view repeated infestations as an indication of a wider problem and this may be why OP’s friend is repeatedly messaging her instead of doing what’s needed and letting the school know. It may be a natural occurrence but parents absolutely are culpable if they are failing to deal with it properly - which is what this sounds like if the child is reinfected every couple of months.

This already happens. Schools broadly follow NHS guidelines for dealing with these outbreaks. But their hands are tied if the parent doesn’t report it to the school. It’s illegal for schools to inspect for lice now, so they’re reliant on parents. But NHS guidelines also suggest that where a child is repeatedly having infestations the school should treat it as a possible sign of a wider problem. This could be what is preventing this mum from reporting.

Tell your friend she needs to treat her child twice it needs to be done 1 week after first treatment to make sure all the eggs have died my guess is she's not doing this and that's why child always has them.

Honestly it sounds fine and I think more people should text when they appear.

Texts and emails can be hard to gauge tone, but I'd assume the best of intentions and just keep checking. Forewarned is forearmed and all that.

One year we had them up until the summer holidays. We were treating them properly, wet brushing, tea tree the works but a couple of other kid's parents were regularly holding off treating as they (understandably)had to wait till pay day and it meant they were constantly getting passed back around.

Are you just removing the lice or are you following through with 10 days of combing, shampooing and conditioning to remove newly hatching babies before they mature and lay more eggs?

"Hello again, Nit Factory's mum. My DD has not had nits for over 3 years. I check her hair weekly and use the nitty gritty regularly as a preventative measure. Whoever Nit Factory is catching them from, it's not DD. Are you aware that you need to get rid of the eggs as well as the lice? It may just be one long outbreak that has never gone away because the eggs are still there. Hope you get it sorted."

Good shout and maybe add something like “thanks so much for letting me know again. We have been lucky as my dd hasn’t had it but maybe we should widen the message so that other parents can be aware so hopefully we can get to the bottom of it soon because unfortunately you seem to be suffering from it and we haven’t had it so it must be coming from somewhere else”.

yeah I have done all that even used the lice stuff from the chemist aswell. she hasn't gotten just now but I keep checking with the comb.

She should be telling the school so that they can tell all the parents to check. Everyone checking is the only way to stop it keep going round.