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

Combing , not cloning

dillite, schools can approach parents, we do every time.

IMO exclusion would be OTT. The children who are neglected to the extent that they have untreated headlice are the ones who most need to be at school and in "the system"

For other children, occasion infestations, swiftly dealt with, whilst a nuisance, aren't the end of the world.

Exclusion would also be illegal

You could be talking about my daughter. She has headlice almost constantly, although I wash and comb her hair every other day, and regularly treat it with Hedrin. Either I don't get them all or they're being passed back and forth between children, or a combination of the two. I think we (that's the parents of children in the class) are more or less resigned to it.

". 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."

If they come back with their hair full of lice then they haven't got them from someone lose- you haven't got out all the eggs and you've had another "hatching". It takes a while to go from a complete lice and egg free head to an infestation.

Did an experiment when my lot were at school.
Took an adult head louse and put it in a little plastic tube. Now, it was supposed to die within a few hours away from the heat of the body.
I killed it myself after 14 DAYS!!
I didn't 'feed' the flippin thing, so how it survived defied all logic.

I only solved my dd re infections - it was constant, I'd get her clear and 2 days later I'd find more, tea tree oil drop in conditioner and combed through every night while watching the TV. Washed it out in the morning, couldn't use the stuff from the nurse as dd had asthma - by putting her hair in mini pony tails. Each end would feed into the next until she had a little stub at the back of her neck. After a few weeks doing her hair that way - I think by then the whole class had all been treated so the endless cycle of re infection stopped - did she stay nit free.

I'm not sure it was 1 dc who was never treated for nits that was spreading them - dd played with everyone, she would've had them again for sure - but maybes that 1 dc was mine and no one told me???

Don't use Hedrin - or any of the other sprays. The lice are becoming immune to them. You need a Nitty Gritty comb, loads and loads of conditioner, and you comb through the hair in small sections every 2 days until all the lice and eggs and lice are gone. Once you've done that you need to spray regularly with dilute tea tree oil, tie back long hair, and regular combing to make sure they haven't reappeared. It can take 2-3 weeks, and it's an utter PITA, but it's the only way to clear them.

They can't become immune to Hedrin- it kills them by smothering not poisoning.

It works really well if you get a major infestation. But if you keep on top of it with regular combing you shouldn't ever get a major infestation

Yes, people who say their child regularly comes home crawling are the problem. No-one comes home crawling the day they caught them. If you comb even once a week, you'll rarely find more than one or two live ones. When you do find something, comb every day for a week or two and the problem will be gone. Then go back to weekly combing.

Doesn't matter how many people in class have them, if you do this regularly your child won't ever have more than a few eggs (IME)

In the US, they send kids home. Parents have to deal with the problem. I think people are overly hysterical about it there, but it does mean that you don't get the constant infestations.

I don't understand why schools here can't be more upfront about telling specific parents they have to deal with the lice on their particular child.

I didn't know Hedrin smothered them - learn something new every day! Conditioner and combing still works best imo - the lice are developing resistance to other sprays

Hedrin is a silicone based treatment. It literally suffocates the nits.

I've been very lucky with my children. DD1 (8.9) has had nits once -two adult lice. I immediately phoned the school and said she'd be late for school, went to the chemist for Hedrin and a nitty gritty, treated her and then took her in.

DD2 (7.2) & DD3 (5.6) have never had lice.

I always have their hair tied up in quite a tight style (high ponytail, top knot with a lower ponytail below, pigtails with plaits, French plait, etc) then I spray their hair with hairspray -it keeps the hair in place so there is less chance of a hair being available to crawl across from an infested child, plus I think lice aren't keen on it, similar to tea tree oil.

I think many parents don't follow up after two weeks when any missed eggs will be hatching

I think that's it mrz - they believe that one spray of whatever will kill them, when in fact you need to keep checking and combing every couple of nights in order to stop the louse growing from nit to adult able to breed - that takes around 2 weeks. You might not get all the nits on first comb, so you have to keep doing it for 2-3 weeks. Again, iirc, there has been research which shows that combing with a nit comb (Nitty Gritty is the best) and conditioner is just as effective as over the counter stuff.

You do all know (especially the "I completely cleared her hair and the next day she was crawling with them" brigade") that it takes at least 40 minutes of careful wet combing to clear a head properly? Use a timer.

Mine have never had nits but we condition and nitty gritty every friday night. It's hateful TBH, ruins the evening but I'd rather have just one session a week than they catch nits and we have to do it daily. I don't want to be doing it late after work.

Tea-tree spray before school every day too.

The advice we get here (which is apparently based on the life cycle of the wretched beasts) is that you have to treat and comb on day 0, day 3 and day 7 and then repeat that for two weeks (I did it for three). Seemed to do the trick but I'm not taking any chances and from now on we are going to follow Meglet's example and do a weekly (or twice weekly if we've been notified by the school that they are about) preventative comb.

Here is a suggested programme on when to comb in order to really rid a head of the beasts.

It's based on the breeding cycle of the louse, and the reality that the dratted eggs are cemented on so firmly that you really won't get them all, no matter how assiduous you are. So you need to comb at the right intervals to get all the hatchlings before they reach sexual maturity.

Repeated infestations are just as likely to have come from well-cemented eggs hatching as from contact with others.

But if the poor child OP mentions really has had nits with no treatment for 3 years, the level of crawling will be so obvious that it is getting to the level where the school may start interventions based on neglect.

OTOH, that child may also be having repeat infestations exactly as OP's child does.

I see people suggesting a tea tree spray. Can some one point me in the direction of this please? I thought I had found the right thing on-line, but the smell is hideous and DD can't go to school smelling like that. I do nitty gritty her hair weekly. It is very long so does take nearly an hour (and many complaints!!) . We have only had them once so far, when i had missed a couple of weeks of checking due to illness.

I just add tea tree oil to water - one recipe here www.livestrong.com/article/110931-prevent-lice-tea-tree-oil/

I think the smell is the whole point.

You could try the Vosene Defence Spray (leave in conditioner) which contains tea tree but still smells of tar like ordinary vosene.

The stuff we found smelt like toilet cleaner....

Has anyone used hairspray as a preventative with sucess? A friend swears by it - her DD with long hair has never had nits.