School not dealing with nits

[alisonb123]

A friend of my daughter has had nits constantly for at least the last 3 years. The school are well aware of this as are many of the parents. The child's mother is in complete denial and claims that she checks her hair.

I have had enough of my daughter coming home with them. What is the best way to approach the school. I am planning to see the Head this time. Any advice.

Thanks

Mine too Ooa

Freezing toys?

The HT can only get secretary to send a general letter stating that lice/nits are going around and have been several cases.
They can't do anything else iirc, what do you want your HT to do?

That's not true morethan. They absolutely can/should be approaching individual parents where they know a child has nits.

My ds used to be friends with a child who always had headlice. The best way for us was to comb out his hair at the door every day. It became a rule that he didn't leave the doormat until I had combed. I got one adult lice most days but we never had an infestation and my other dc and myself didn't catch them from him. You can't do anything about other people you just have to work out a strategy that keeps your child clear IME.

The school can approach but the parent doesn't have to act that's the problem

If the parent doesn't act it can/should be treated as a CP issue though mrsz. Obviously, in the scheme of things, nits isn't the biggest issue in the world but if a child is constantly/permanently infested it's very likely that there are other failings in the child's care.

Suggest you try getting overstretched social workers to prioritise head lice

No, of course they don't prioritise headlice but it should be a red flag for CP officers in school and the SW may well be interested in the other issues that come to light because of it. It's like unpaid dinner money. Not in itself a major cause for concern but it almost always means there are other problems.

Agree with Explored. We do use constant head lice infestation as a red flag but ss are so stretched that very little will happen IME. Only if a family is already known or more comes to light.

Children with live lice in their hair should be sent home ( and not allowed back until they have no live lice that can infect other children). I don't understand why more schools don't do this. Those that do don't have ongoing life problems like you read of on here.

And all the designated person can do is record unless there are more serious evidence ...

Yes, that's what I meant Finola. The lice are a red flag and the children/family are then on the radar for if other issues crop up.

I disagree Disco, the infested children are the ones who need to be in school more than most.

Ds has had them twice. I cleared them the moment I saw them (none when I checked him 2 days before though). I sent him back to school, checked it the following day and again, there was a lot, again I got rid of them and used tea tree shampoo and there were no more. It's annoying when you go to the effort to check your child's hair and remove them, only for them to return from school with their hair full of lice. I only went through this once so it must be soul destroying to have to do this all the time just because someone can't be arsed to treat their child.

If we phoned in to our children's services referral hub about head lice, they would think we'd taken leave of our senses.

It is neglect IMO, but I know SS look at the overall picture so this alone might mean they won't bother.

Grrr. I've never said nits should be reported to SS but they are one red flag, which along with others often does mean the family needs some help. The school's CP officer needs to be aware and the family be monitored. At least that's what happens at our school.

Honestly folks, chill, even when the obvious unfortunate DC had received help, nits were still endemic in DD's class.

They really aren't worth fussing about.

They really aren't worth fussing about.

I'm sorry but head lice absolutely are worth making a fuss about, my children have had them twice I made sure I treated them straight away and continued to do so until they were gone. I also check every week so that if they do get invested I can be on top of it quickly. This is only as much as every parent should do.

nits were still endemic in DD's class.

Maybe that's because some parents think they are not worth making a fuss about?

They are absolutely worth making a fuss about. What an odd attitude. If they are endemic then someone somewhere is not treating properly - which involves a lot of combing with conditioner for 2-3 weeks followed by tea tree or something else to stop them returning, regular combing to make sure they haven't returned, and long hair tied back, as opposed the odd spray of stuff that the nits are immune to (but involves less work on the part of the parent).

Untreated nits are definitely a sign of neglect and symptomatic of other problems at home.

Can I just ask why schools can't approach individual parents/ exclude children from school if they have lice? Surely, that's the logical thing to do?

How on earth do you think we could exclude children because their parents haven't dealt with nits!!

I know how long it took to be sure DD2's fine, much shorter hair was clear of nits and even then I would never of bet money that I hadn't missed any.

I certainly would never have bet a penny on being a 100% certain I'd got them out of DD1's mane, however long DH or I combed it.

Some of DDs class had very long very thick hair and know it all mothers of very little brain, who undoubtably felt they did the job perfectly every time.

With the best will in the world some of the little beggars were going to escape.

Had school handed out the life cycle based cloning regime and got everyone on side to start on the same day, insisted all long hair was not only tied up, but remained tied up.

No playing hairdressers at break or during boring assemblies, they might have stood a chance, but as it was the little blighters kept reappearing.