3 Lice Prevention Rules For Your Kids
When your child comes down with lice, it can create quite a bit of chaos for even the most organized families. Following specific lice treatment instructions is key, yet it may quickly occur to you that lice is a pest you don't want to encounter again. Preventing re-infestations of lice in the future will save a lot of time and frustration. Set these rules for your kids to prevent lice at bay.
No Sharing Allowed
Sharing is caring, but that is not the case when it comes to personal items. Sharing hats, combs, hair ribbons, barrettes, scarves, brushes, and other personal items should always be off limits. Even towels, sheets, blankets, pillows, and sleeping bags should not be shared among kids, especially if one has recently had lice. If you don't want to make these things forbidden all the time, set a rule that your child must ask your permission before sharing personal items with another child. That includes offering their own items for another child to use for a bit.
Limit Selfies with Other Kids
Okay, so maybe you don't have to rule out all selfies. However, head-to-head contact should be strictly prohibited. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, head-to-head (and, thus, hair-to-hair) contact is a common way to spread head lice. Due to how close kids tend to get to one another when snapping quick selfies, make sure your kids know to only take close-up selfies solo. You may help them think of polite ways to bow out of them with other kids, even if it is just saying something simple like casually stating they're having a bad hair day and don't want to be in the picture.
Require Tidiness at Home and School
Teach your children to be tidy as part of your lice prevention plan. Sometimes kids spread lice to one another at school when they toss their coats in a pile at the door. Lice can go from coat to coat, and they can survive for a couple of days without a human host. The odds of getting lice this way may be smaller, but keeping coats, blankets, and other personal things separated is a good habit to establish for lice prevention.
Finally, keep in mind that preventing lice is very important. A child can easily get lice even if they had it as recently as a week or even a day ago. There is no way of being immune to a lice infestation, so being proactive about prevention is the best solution. These rules help take the guesswork out of prevention for your kids.