American Pediatrics says children with lice should go to school

[Handbag Lady]

Funny this comes up today. A lady I work with had her kids sent home yesterday with lice. Both kids!

She hired in a service that stayed at her home last night for over 7 hours and took care of everything for her. They cleaned the kids' hair, used treatments and this fancy heat machine to their scalps and cleaned and washed the hats, the combs...everything.

It wasn't cheap, but the kids are now lice-free.

 

[ols386]

If this becomes policy, and kids are allowed to come to school with lice, it will be cyclical....there are parents who won't bother to shampoo and comb/pick the nits out since it won't affect their child going to school. Then everyone in the class will keep getting it. I understand that by the time visible lice are present other kids have been exposed, but the same is true of other common illnesses like strep throat, bronchitis, whooping cough, even flu and the common cold. Using that logic, they may as well let anyone send their child to school no matter what they have.

I never said it should become policy, so not sure why you quoted me.

 

[Disneycrazy!!]

WOW!!!! I would never ever send my kid to school like that. How emberreasing for the child and for the family. I know people who's kids have gotten lice from other kids at school and they own a large home...the cost to treat their home for lice was in the $$$ hundreds!!!
Plus that is just down right NASTy to send a child to school with bugs in their head and unfair to other kids!

 

[smb6]

I wanted to add that the school my kids went to at the time they had it required you to take the kids into the local board of education office where the nurses did a thorough check of your kids head under a bright lamp to make sure there was not as much as a single nit and then they gave you a letter allowing you to return your kids to school. They took it seriously! FYI: we shaved our boys heads to help the process along......

 

[smb6]

I wanted to add that the school my kids went to at the time they had it required you to take the kids into the local board of education office where the nurses did a thorough check of your kids head under a bright lamp to make sure there was not as much as a single nit and then they gave you a letter allowing you to return your kids to school. They took it seriously! FYI: we shaved our boys heads to help the process along......

 

[wowsmom]

Good grief, this is such a bad idea. Let's lock the guy in a room full of lice-infested kids for a few weeks.

I like this idea!

My son had lice in 2nd grade...we were lucky that it didn't spread to the rest of the family, but even just dealing with him was a LOT of work. No way would I want somebody to send their lice-infested kid to school to "spread the joy".

 

[wowsmom]

Does anyone else's head itch right now? Reading all this makes my head itch. I think it is a terrible idea to knowingly let lice go to school.

Mine does!

By the way, my son got his lice from a hat he wore at his cousin's birthday party (the puppet lady brought hats for all the kids to wear during one part). Nobody in his class got it - the nurse checked them all. But we did keep him home for a couple of days, to be sure he was clear.

 

[poohs_hunny]

According to the doctors, the children with lice should just be seperated from the other children because it's just not "that easy" for kids to share lice. If it's not "that easy" how do classes of people get them at one?

Oh, that's brilliant! So it's not okay to keep a kid with lice home but it's just fine and dandy to send them and keep them separated from the other kids. I'm sure the announcement of, "Kids, don't go near or play with Susie - she's got lice!" won't affect the child at all. Has this person ever been in a classroom? It's impossible to keep a child separated. What about lunch? Recess? I guess the kid's supposed to be in a bubble all day.

 

[paigeandmorgansmom]

our school system wont even let the teachers send a note home telling you to check your child due to other children having lice. They say it will hurt the childs feeling if the other kids even found out. I think we should at least be told to check our children. They dont have to release the childs name that has it. 2 years ago my daughters class was exposed to whooping cough, and we werent told tell a few days later. It is crazy!!

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

As a school administrator, I've looked into this issue a fair amount, and I agree with the AAP on this one. I think that when students are identified as having lice they should be quarantined, and parents should be notified. I think that schools should provide parents with accurate information about how to handle lice, and how to treat and check their own children before they return. But the current practices that I see in many schools where schools act like they have ebola or something are crazy, and can be really hurtful and stigmatizing to children. They also have been shown repeatedly not to reduce the transmission of lice.

I read a study that says that the average student with lice has them for something like 3 months before they are discovered. We act as though immediately isolating the lousy student is a brilliant preventative measure, but in fact, by the time you discover the child has lice they've likely had it in your classroom for weeks or months. Either they've spread the lice or they haven't, and becoming hysterical at that point isn't going to help.

I think that often times parents demand that kids with lice be kept home, but that's just not the solution. What they should be demanding is careful cleaning of the classroom. Proper sanitation procedures (e.g. individual cubbies without shared coathooks, soft materials in the classroom washed frequently, children sleeping on the same cots everyday that are cleaned regularly etc . . . All these things are far more likely to actually cut down on the transmission of lice from child to child.

 

[scrapbookworm]

So, then should it imply kids with pinkeye, scabes, a cold, etc should go to school b/c those generally aren't life threatening?

I don't agree. Lice may not be a real illness, but they shouldn't definitely be kept home and treated. And we've been through it twice.

 

[Rora]

I'm a 3rd grade teacher.. please please please don't let your child come to school with lice!! I'm begging you, the other teachers are begging you, and your kids are begging you.

What the heck are these DRs thinking?! Sure it's not life threatening but uhh.. gross! And, it only causes more problems for the school/parents/child.

 

[OceanAnnie]

As a school administrator, I've looked into this issue a fair amount, and I agree with the AAP on this one. I think that when students are identified as having lice they should be quarantined, and parents should be notified. I think that schools should provide parents with accurate information about how to handle lice, and how to treat and check their own children before they return. But the current practices that I see in many schools where schools act like they have ebola or something are crazy, and can be really hurtful and stigmatizing to children. They also have been shown repeatedly not to reduce the transmission of lice.

I read a study that says that the average student with lice has them for something like 3 months before they are discovered. We act as though immediately isolating the lousy student is a brilliant preventative measure, but in fact, by the time you discover the child has lice they've likely had it in your classroom for weeks or months. Either they've spread the lice or they haven't, and becoming hysterical at that point isn't going to help.

I think that often times parents demand that kids with lice be kept home, but that's just not the solution. What they should be demanding is careful cleaning of the classroom. Proper sanitation procedures (e.g. individual cubbies without shared coathooks, soft materials in the classroom washed frequently, children sleeping on the same cots everyday that are cleaned regularly etc . . . All these things are far more likely to actually cut down on the transmission of lice from child to child.

Those measures should be in place also. I do think keeping the child with lice at home cuts down on exposure, in addition to the measures you listed.

I'm a 3rd grade teacher.. please please please don't let your child come to school with lice!! I'm begging you, the other teachers are begging you, and your kids are begging you.

What the heck are these DRs thinking?! Sure it's not life threatening but uhh.. gross! And, it only causes more problems for the school/parents/child.

Parents are begging you too.

 

[SandrA9810]

I got it more than my fair share in school, and sometimes from my sister. I hated going through the routine of trying to get rid of them.

I've been lice free for 13 years now. What finally worked was a good coating of vaseline, which wound up in my hair for a few days because my aunt did not pay close enough attention to the news report to remember how to get it out. Which is probably why it worked so well, killing the eggs too. We tried every grease cleaner possible, starting with simple stuff like dish soap, finally found Simple Green works best on hair.

But for getting rid of lice, you have to try a different treatment each time, because they become immune to it. And following through. No one pays attention to the eggs that are about to hatch.

Maybe a release form should be made up for allowing the school nurse to treat a child's head with something like tea tree oil or vaseline. If they don't allow it, then the child should be sent home immediately and not return till it's cleared.

 

[teacherforhi]

My school system doesn't even check for lice anymore. We stopped years ago. I have no idea what we would do about a child that had them. I wouldn't even know unless the child was scratching excessively.

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

My school system doesn't even check for lice anymore. We stopped years ago. I have no idea what we would do about a child that had them. I wouldn't even know unless the child was scratching excessively.

If lice checks were an effective tool for preventing outbreaks you would expect to see your school system having the highest rates. It sounds like you don't.

My son's school sent out an email asking for parent volunteers to come in and check kids heads for lice. I was astounded. Why on Earth would people think that's OK? First of all, what kind of training do they have? I have heard so many stories of schools sending home kids who turned out to have dandruff, or hair styling product in their hair, because of untrained "nit checkers". Second of all, the parents who volunteered were all the school gossips. How is that OK for them to have their hands all over my child, and then to be privvy to their personal medical information. To me it was as if they decided that kids couldn't come back to school from Chicken Pox until they were free of scabs (even though we know that, just like kids with nits but no lice, kids with scabs but no open pox aren't contagious -- in both conditions kids are contagious long before the condition is diagnosed), so they allowed parents to come in and strip search other people's kids.

 

[C.Ann]

I could just imagine if my DGD - with her very long, very, very, thick, very naturally curly hair - came home with head lice!!! It would be an absolute nightmare trying to get rid of them..

I'm with the groups that says, "keep them home"..

 

[Colleen27]

Uggh, as far as I'm concerned this countries scientific community is no longer an objective ethical think tank. It's now simply a credible mouthpiece for whatever agenda is the flavor of the month. Sounds like keeping as many kids in school as long as possible to get federal money is now the objective of our schools, not keeping our kids safe from harm. Such a shame.

Not to mention making sure parents aren't inconvenienced by sick days (a rationale that is frequently used in encouraging optional vaccinations as well). What bothers me about it is that when the AAP says it is okay for kids to go to school with lice, schools will listen and before long lice won't be an acceptable reason for an excused absence so even parents that want to keep their kids home until they're nit-free will be pressured into sending them to school to share the infestation.

 

[skuttle]

DS7 ended up with lice after our Disney cruise. The cruise was the only place he had been around a lot of other kids all summer, and he started scratching his head a few days after the cruise, so I'm assuming that's where they came from. DH and I were lucky and didn't get them. But they were gross! DS had been letting his hair grow longer, but we ended up giving him a buzz cut to try to help us get rid of the nits. After going through it once, I definitely don't want to go through it again. Keep the kids at home!

 

[CaliforniaDreamin]

Whenever a lice thread comes up, I have to give my advice on what worked best for us.

Both DD's had it, I got it and my dad got it. Anyway, did the lice shampoo with the nit comb. Lice were back 2 days later bigger than before! These shampoos are pesticides and lice are becoming resistant to them (kinda like how antibiotics aren't as effective anymore because of over prescribing).


I looked online for a pesticide free solution. Olive oil drenched on the head until soaked, cover up with a shower cap and wear for 8 hours. This sufficates the lice (water does not) and makes the nits easy breezy to comb out the next day. Like PPs mentioned, mayo or vaseline will do the same. My dad didn't tell me that he got the lice from us until a couple of months had passed (he didn't want to upset me) and all he had was Vicks Vaporub and he used it and it worked (he doesn't have much hair and it's a good thing, all that Vicks would give me a headache).