To think kids with terrible cases of head lice should be kept home from school...

[dippymare]

until their carers deal with them?

If you can clearly see an army of adult head lice marching through a child's hair at any given moment, surely a school should have the right to insist that the child is kept at home until they are less infested?

I know its not really fair to penalise the nitee, but just don't think some parents/carers bother otherwise. Am just soooo sick of nit combing...

YABU
It's not the child's fault they have nits. Why should they miss out on school?

YANBU. I also think parents should stop expecting me to cut infested hair.
At my work we had a woman come in to get her daughters cut, the poor girls hair was actually moving.
I discreetly said to the mum that if she came back after she had treated the hair I would be more than happy to cut it.
"Can you not just cut them out?" she replied.
I saw them in the shopping centre a week later and the girl had had her hair shaved off. That's one way of treating I suppose.

DS1 has had them loads but I comb his hair every time I wash it now - so every couple of days.

However the first time he had them he had loads before I realised as I'd never seen them before.

I think the reason they stopped nit nurses was also because checking dry hair is just not that good - thats how I missed DS1's initially.

I'm always open if ds1 has nits - we have to tell the teacher and children take home a letter saying there's an outbreak.

This is very frustrating because the treatments are expensive and/or time-consuming, as well as the yuk factor. There is a child at my DN's school who has them crawling in her hair (the letters, polite reminders are ignored). The other children compete to sit behind her in assembley so that they can do a nit count. It must be awful for the girl but the school say they can't approach her parents directly. And so it goes on ....

I agree totally with Faddle.
It should be classed as a communicable disease and therefore the children get sent home.
We had a dose of them a few months back and thankfully we got shot pretty quick. My dd not having much hair Hedrin, nitty gritty comb
seemed to do it after 3 attempts. I use the tea tree repellant also and it seems to have worked so far.

I have to check my DS1's hair every 2/3 days for the bloody things. They must either love him or he gets them off the same person every week at school. We don't get them in the holidays.

I just don't see how someone could not treat their child. I can't give DS1 a proper hug when he's got them as I know I'll catch them. They're vile too, I have to treat them and then comb them out dead as the sight of them walking around makes me heave.

At his next birthday party I want to give nitty gritty combs out in the party bags and squirt them all with stuff as them come into the party

YABU.

The child shouldn't be penalised for their parents inaction. They should not be deprived of an education due to a social, not medical, problem.

Oh and the lack of nit nurses isn't due to infringing on a child's rights - it's due to a lack of school nurses, the few of which remain have more important priorities.

YANBU. I am totally sick and tired of political correctness and parental apathy in dealing with these bloody creatures. I comb DD's hair through after every hairwash then put tea tree in the rinse, it's not difficult but it's effective.

I emailed the school the Nitty Gritty prescription letter and it is going in the next newsletter.

I have a spray bottle with mix of tea tree oil, lavender and eucalyptus which I use as a detangler and air freshener it seems works to well. Smells nice too.

I got caught sleeping in the first term of Reception and told everyone as I think openness makes parents have a check.

Anyone else got severe psychological nits from reading this thread?

They don't like me, nits. I have had kids in my class crawling, and never caught them even the TAs have - and working in SN schools, we work in far closer proximity than most mainstream teachers. Even when both older kids and DH has had them, I haven't. Must be the vast amounts of garlic I eat.

DD is friendly with a girl who constantly had them. Her mother is a teaching assistant so should be pretty well aware how to treat them. She used to complain how much money a bottle cost (quite happy to fork out the best part of a grand for a sofa bed) so I made her up a solution using Quassia bark and vinegar. It needed to go on twice and after the first time all I heard about was how much it stunk and although it seemed to have got rid of them she wasn't doing it again.

Her DD's hair is very thick and she refused to let her Mum comb it (age 10) and it got to the stage where she had to be carted off to the hairdresser, who took 90 minutes cutting out all the matted hair. her hair was covered with White cases that are still visible well over a year later. I was curling my DD's hair once and she wanted hers done and I have never seen so many hatched nit cases and also brown ones in my life, just after shd had been treated. Other children used to see them crawling in her hair. Her Mum came out with things like they've all gone now, the chlorine in the pool killed them. When another friend's DD caught thfm from her and her Mum said she had spent well over an hour combing, the girl with nit's Mum looked horrified at the idea it took so long.

In the end I got very pointed about it and started grilling her on how she was treating them as I was so sick of how often DD was getting them that she finally pulled her finger out and treated them properly. DD doesn't tend to see her DD much now and finally in Year 6 she doesn't get them after constant cases since Year 3 when she caught them for the first time after playing with this child. I think schools should be much tougher on this.

I speak here as a parent and an ex teacher and I agree totally with the op.

When I was at school(70s and 80s)you blasted nits with pesticides so it was job done.

Nitty Gritty is obviously not quite so effective in the short term so I think parents give up(believe me having been combing for 3 weeks for twin 1 I've considered it myself). You have to be disciplined or it just doesn't work.I don't think schools and health professionals haven't taken this on board.

The only thing that breaks the cycle is the nit infester being apart from other children. Said twin repeatedly becomes totally clear during the holidays.During the school term I clear him and 2 days later we find 2 full grown mummy nits merrily laying eggs.They can only have crawled from another child.

However this is no excuse and nits makes you feel lousy and unable to concentrate.My son is being repeatedly re-infected however much I comb. Why should his education be spoilt thanks to a lazy few (and it is lazyness). If you comb regularly the nits never get the chance to mature and lay eggs. Repeated full grown nits is unacceptable.

From past experience I could pretty much guarantee that nearly all parents with the choice between a child kicking around at home or a dose of Hedrin would go for the latter so the amount of education missed would be minimal and the rest of the class could enjoy school without scratching.

Exclusion from school is desperately needed,the repeated infestation of entire classes would be drastically reduced. I think the vast majority of parents would support this-I would in a shot.

Yes I agree. The Small girl I look after has had them repeatedly for nearly 2 years! I started treating her, but we ran through all the products. So then we got a nitty gritty and started combing. Every time I had her clear, she would go stay with granny and come home with them, or I'd have a weeks holiday and they would be back. If this girl was mine I would hAve shaved her head! In the end, I had to stop combing her and enforce her dad doing it, ( am highly allergic to headlice). he finally woke up to the problem when her teacher threatened to report her. She is now clear, but its been a long slog! I think kids should be sent home or treated by the school. Any child who's head I moving needs to be reported as neglected and investigated! My little girl had lost her mum and dad wasn't coping very well. he just needed help.

At my DCs school they do ask you to keep the infected child off school until treatment has been given. I always assumed that this happened everywhere. They also give every child a note letting them know when there has been an outbreak in the class and advising parents to check their children. Parents are pretty good at letting the teachers know if their child has headlice, I don't think it is seen as such a terrible thing these days - everyone I know seems to have had them at one time or other!