20 Ways to Kill Head Lice
First things first: Take a deep breath and don't freak out if your child has head lice. Sure, they're gross (just talking about them can make your head itch), but they're not actually harmful to health.
It's best to approach lice as a war on many fronts: You need to use a variety of techniques to kill not only adult lice, but also their tiny eggs (called nits), which are glued to the hair shaft. The nits can survive treatments that kill the adults and vice versa (These bugs have evolved over a millennium to live in hair, so they're tricky).
It's best to steel yourself for weeks or months of vigilance since lice can reappear due to repeated exposure or a missed nit. What doesn't help is panic.