• Check your children's heads every day.  If lice is caught early, it's easier to treat.  Every bug can lay 3-4 nits/eggs a day which will hatch new bugs who will lay 3-4 nits/eggs a day, etc...The nits/eggs are easier to see than the bugs.  The bugs look almost like straw and for kids with brown and lighter hair, they're almost impossible to see.  The nits/eggs look like a small opaque drop of water or sometimes like dandruff.  The way you know it's lice is that it will take some effort to remove it from the hair shaft.  Dandruff shakes free when you touch it.  Nits/eggs don't.  You have to scrape them off the hair shaft.
• Girls with long hair should wear their hair up or back so that it's less likely to come into contact with someone else's hair or clothing. 
• Tea tree oil is supposed to make hair inhabitable for lice.  Paul Mitchell makes a leave in conditioner with tea tree oil and the health food store sells tea tree oil in a bottle. 
• Hair spray and leave in conditioners are also good, since lice like clean hair.

 If you get lice:

• Lice can't be drowned or burned by a hair dryer.  They need to be suffocated.  Special shampoos like Rid/Nix are available at local pharmacies.  There are also several organic products advertised. 
• The comb you buy is very important, because that will get rid of most of the eggs/nits and bugs.  Natural things, like mayonnaise put on the head and covered by a shower cap are also effective.  The shower cap needs to be tight so no air leaks in. 
• Just because you've treated once with a lice ridding shampoo doesn't mean you've gotten rid of the problem.  Any egg/nit left in the head can hatch 7-10 days later and start the process again.  It's important after you treat with medicated shampoo, to continue to comb and check every day.
• Vacuum.  This prevents lice from spreading from person to person.  Hairs with nits/eggs fall off of people and vacuuming picks them up.  Vacuum floors and furniture - especially cloth couches if your child sits on them.  Lice need a host, so they don't live too long once they've left your head.
• Put things in the dryer that you can't wash- pillows, stuffed animals, coats, hats, backpacks, comforters, blankets, car seat covers - for 20 minutes. If you're not sure if your child has lice, you can ask the school nurse to look.   Although they're not a health risk they are a nuisance that impacts a family in many stress-filled ways.