With the explosion of head lice throughout the country, if you're child attends school or a day care center, you will probably one day get that call. These phone calls are typically broken into three parts and sometimes a fourth is thrown in to make you feel better. They include:

1. Statement of fact. In a routine inspection of your child's classroom environment, we found evidence of lice.

2. Remove the Problem from the School. Please pick up your child from school immediately

3. Clean It up or Don't Come Back. She's not welcome back into school, until such time as the head lice has been effectively removed and she undergoes an inspection by the school nurse.

The fourth part of this contact is a statement to the effect that it's not you or your child's fault that they have lice. This no doubt is offered to make one feel better about the fact that parasites are growing on your offspring. It's ok that everybody at this point usually will say ICK!

The point to remember is that at least in this case, school officials are partially right saying that it's not you, your home or your child's fault that there's evidence of lice. In truth however, your child has not been trained or taught not to use others combs, brushes or wear another's hat. These are by far the most common ways that have lice are transmitted from an infected person to another.

As training is ultimately the responsibility of parents, we need to recognize that if our children get head lice, it's probably because we haven't taught them how to protect themselves from the little blood sucking parasites. Now is the time to explain the importance of not sharing your brush or hair products with friends. While allowing a friend to use your hair band may be nice, it's a potential source of head lice that should be avoided.

The problem is that they may run the risk of offending and possibly alienating their friends. A good compromise than would be to have your child share their brush or hair band and place it in an extra plastic bag to bring home. Once home, you can boil them in hot water or use disinfectant cleaner to keep lice at bay.

It's an unfortunate fact that head lice is a growing problem throughout the country. Care should be taken to limit exposure to potential parasite lice as much as possible. While not a perfect solution, protecting your child from head lice needs to be an ongoing effort