Kids With Head Lice - Send Them Home or Let Them Stay?

By Louise Hodges
The debate over head lice is getting heated up. In the past, any child found with live head lice or the presence of nits (eggs) was automatically sent home, instructed to perform a treatment, and then rechecked thoroughly before being able to come back to school.
The shifting trend today is let the child stay in school. Parents have complained that having to drop everything to get the child out of school for the day is an undue hardship. These pests don't harm anyone, sure they are a nuisance, but it isn't like anyone's health is at stake, right? Why should Myrna lose her job due to absence just because her daughter has head lice?

Head lice are not carriers of disease but they spread like wildfire and are very difficult to get rid of. Historically, treatments have been brutally tedious as every square inch of the scalp must be checked and then each individual hair shaft (yes, every one) must be combed to remove the 'nits' or eggs so that new head lice don't hatch and keep the process going.
How reasonable is it to get every strand of hair and how probable is it that every tiny, hardly visible egg sac has been whisked away? Well, NOT likely at all. Once your child has been diagnosed with head lice, it seems at least 2-3 hours every night for a week is spent doing what is known as nit-picking. Scrubbing the floor of a sports arena with a toothbrush sounds easier.
Getting back to the changing policy, let's say Carrie's daughter does not have head lice and she wants to keep it that way! If Myrna's child decides to sit on the same bean bag chair in 'Storytime', you can just about guarantee that Carrie's daughter will soon be scratching her head too. And if you allow kids with cooties in their hair in the classroom, isn't that like putting a big bully-ostracize-me-at-all-costs target on his or her back?
So what is the answer? Some school districts have changed to a policy that live head lice mean the child goes home and the mere presence of nits in the hair is a pass to stay. That seems like a decent compromise, right? Well not according to the Carrie parents of the world. Realistically, checking through a child's scalp - even quite thoroughly - is no guarantee that all live head lice have been spotted. The thickness, the texture and even the color of the hair make a big difference as to how easy it is to spot these menaces. The only opportunity for comfort is knowing a treatment has been performed and that can only happen once the child has gone home.
So what is right? Send them home or let them stay - are you Team Myrna or Team Carrie?
Louise Hodges is the owner of Greenbug which offers effective, safe and green pest control products. You can now safely eliminate pests without using toxic chemicals!
Greenbug products kill and repel all the pests you don't want such as Head Lice, Mosquitoes, Ants, Bed Bugs, Fleas, etc. but cause no harm whatsoever to beneficial creatures.
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