Headlice (merged)

bylromarha

Legally a school cannot kick you out for having head lice...you can only suggest to the parent that they stay off school until the lice are gone.

As for further prevention from primary school, it isn't going to happen. I used to have one child in my class who had a permenent case of them (poor lamb) dad didn't care, mum wasn't around, so she itched the entire year and I had so many parents complain to me that their child kept getting lice...really empathised. one even stood on the school gate handing out leaflets to all parents to let them know how to get rid of lice, she was so cross.

most lotions aren't worth it these days. Best thing you can do is keep up with the comb and ensure all long hair is tightly tied back.

All the best.

jellyhead

oh that poor boy, bless him :-(

can't believe they've sent him home for having lice - our school says it's against the human rights of the child for them to even notice when a child is crawling with them, all they can do is send out a letter to the whole class. my boy is in year 5 now and it's less than once a month but in the early years it was pretty much weekly that letter. oddly he never got them though, except for one time on holiday. i got them off him but mine came back a week later. 2nd time i tried a natural lotion and it worked. it was called 'nitlotion' and had nothing nasty in it, just coconut oil which suffocates live ones and dissolves the glue holding eggs on to the hair, so that's it, you do it once and it's all gone unless of course you're a child in a class where others don't get treated. i have asthma and eczema and an itchy head and the coconut stuff was lovely, no side effects at all. you could probably use it every week as a preventative measure for a child who has a sensitive head and can't always use chemicals.

Eagle_1

Well I applaud schools for sending home children who have head lice, if schools did this more frequently then the outbreaks of headlice would be few and far between.
Why should the rest of the class be made to suffer ? nits are not nice and are very hard to get rid of when the child has long, thick hair lke my Daughter. So as far as im concerned bring back the nitty nurse and send affected childrem home.

Eagle_1

jellyhead wrote:

can't believe they've sent him home for having lice - our school says it's against the human rights of the child for them to even notice when a child is crawling with them, all they can do is send out a letter to the whole class.

Then what about when the bullying starts ? lets face it kids can be really cruel so assume the child catches heal lice and they are kept at school.......other kids see them scratting like mad and the name calling starts. Whats best ? I know what id prefer tbh.

jellyhead

i suppose so but school say that's the law ... i don' know how much of a problem it is, i've only worked in year 3 and above, never seen a nitty child or caught it from them. parents of girls in my boy's class when he was little though got very upset about it, their girls catching lice all the time straight after being treated, they always thought there must be one or two parents who never treat their children.

jenniferpa

I wonder if all these parents who complain that their child is catching nits from others after treatment are really ensuring that everything (bedding, upholstery, clothing, coats etc) that the child may come in contact with are thoroughly cleaned following an infestation. If they don't do that, they might as well not bother.

Jennifer

Spendless

jenniferpa wrote:

I wonder if all these parents who complain that their child is catching nits from others after treatment are really ensuring that everything (bedding, upholstery, clothing, coats etc) that the child may come in contact with are thoroughly cleaned following an infestation. If they don't do that, they might as well not bother.

Jennifer

Really . DS fetched them home recently and the literature I read said that they do not live on anything other than hair.

Jellyhead- where did you buy that stuff from you mentioned?

wolfehouse

my daughters school refuse to send letters (even saying an annonymous child has lice in their year) for fear of bullying. you would think excluding a child for lice would be an invitation for bullying too. (what was he supposed to tell his friends the reason was?)

Daughter's kept coming back and i tried everything starting with the relevant poison and on to wet combing every night. Finally I found that if you slap on a jar's worth of cheap mayonaise, covered with cling film and held on with a shower cap for the whole day (or night) the lice were smothered. i repeated a week later and the problem has never returned. my daughter, however, would like it if i never ever spoke of it again.

looby75

I've been thinking about this poor kids problem all evening and one thing has just struck me. How much of a problem is a 13yr old lad who sometimes has nits going to realistically cause in HIGH SCHOOL? Nits isn't usually an issue buy the time kids go to high school mainly because nits can only be caught by putting your head next to someone else who already has nits right. How many 13 yr old boys do you know that sit cuddled up to eachother in school?

Considering this poor lad has psoriasis and that his Mum is doing her very best to treat all her children I really don't see a need for the school to exclude him until any headlice have gone. And again HAS he actually got nits at or is it just the psoriasis playing up, either way HOW do the school know he has nits. If they have examined him I think that's classed as assault now.

And now my head is itching from both the talk of nits and psoriasis

jenniferpa

Nope, although less common as opposed to direct contact, they most certainly can live for a short time (anywhere from 20 hours to 3 days) on other stuff.

Actually this is an interesting point. There does seem to be a standard line in the UK that other things don't need to be treated, and it seems cases of nits have increased, while in the US, treatment of bedding etc is SOP, and head lice cases are decreasing. Connection perhaps? You don't need to go overboard, but I would definitely clean clothing particularly coats and wash pillowcases.

The other problem is that if a commericial preparation is used, there is a certain level of confidence that it has worked, and I don't think that's always the case.

Jennifer