Pennsylvania has more Lyme disease cases than any state in the country. Deer ticks now live in every one of our 67 counties, including the green spaces behind our houses and the brushy edges at our parks. For families in Montgomery County, that is not a reason to keep kids indoors. It is a reason to know the few simple steps that make outdoor summer days safe.
Tick season runs from May through August, and the kids most likely to get bitten are ages 5 to 14. That covers our older preschoolers and every younger sibling who follows them outside. Here is what actually works.
Why This Matters in Montgomery County
The Pennsylvania Department of Health logged 16,624 Lyme disease cases in 2024, and the CDC estimates true case counts are roughly ten times higher than what gets reported. Deer ticks carry Lyme, and deer ticks are everywhere in our area. Wooded creek banks. Untended lawns next to a trail. The leaf litter along your fence line. The state’s own data shows more than half of new cases land between May and August.
The good news is that ticks need time to attach before they can transmit Lyme, often 24 to 36 hours. That makes a quick post-outdoors check when the kids come back inside one of the highest-impact things a parent can do. Catch them early, and you catch them before they matter.
Where Ticks Actually Live
Ticks do not drop from trees. They sit on the tips of grass, low brush, and leaf piles waiting to grab onto anything warm that brushes past. The spots they cluster:
- Tall grass at the edges of mowed lawns
- Leaf litter under shrubs and along fence lines
- Wooded trails, especially the first few feet off the path
- Stone walls (mice and chipmunks live in them, and ticks ride the rodents)
- Playground perimeters where mulch meets weeds
If your child is running on a freshly mowed lawn or playing on a maintained playground surface, the risk is low. If they are picking dandelions at the edge of a field or stomping through leaf piles at the woods line, the risk goes up.
Three Habits Before They Go Outside
You do not need a hazmat suit. You need three habits, repeated until they are automatic.
Light-colored clothing. Tan or pale clothing makes a dark speck of a tick visible the second one lands. If you are walking a trail with little kids, tuck pant legs into socks. It looks goofy. It works.
Permethrin on shoes and outer gear. Permethrin is a clothing treatment, not a skin product. You spray it on shoes, socks, and outdoor gear, and you let it dry before anyone wears it. It stays effective through several washes. For families that hike, camp, or spend real time at parks with wooded edges, this is the single most useful thing in the cabinet. Never apply it to skin.
EPA-registered repellent on skin. For children three and older, the CDC and AAP recommend products with DEET, picaridin, IR3535, or oil of lemon eucalyptus (OLE). For children under three, oil of lemon eucalyptus is not safe. Lower-concentration DEET (10 to 30 percent) is approved by the AAP for infants over two months when used as directed. If you are using both sunscreen and repellent, sunscreen goes on first, then repellent on top.
The 60-Second Check That Matters Most
When the kids come back inside, before they hit the bath, run the routine:
- Pull off everything they wore and toss it into the dryer on high heat for 10 minutes. Heat kills ticks. Washing alone does not.
- Do a full body scan with them. Hair and scalp, behind the ears, neck, armpits, belly button, waistband, behind the knees, between the toes. Make it part of the bath routine instead of a separate event.
- Get them showered or bathed within two hours of coming inside. The shower rinses off any tick that has not yet attached and gives you a second chance to spot one you missed.
Once it is in the routine, it takes a minute. We do a version of this at our centers after outdoor play, and it becomes automatic for the older preschoolers.
How to Remove a Tick If You Find One
Stay calm. Skip the old advice. No matches, no nail polish, no vaseline, no twisting motion. Those tricks can make a tick regurgitate into the bite. Use a pair of fine-tipped tweezers.
- Grasp the tick as close to the skin as you can get.
- Pull straight up with steady, even pressure. Do not twist or yank.
- Clean the bite and your hands with rubbing alcohol or soap and water.
- Save the tick in a sealed plastic bag or a small jar with a little rubbing alcohol. If your child develops symptoms in the next few weeks, your pediatrician may want to know what kind it was or how long it was attached.
Note the date you found it. That is the start of your watch window.
When to Call Your Pediatrician
The classic Lyme rash, the expanding circle or bull’s-eye pattern, shows up in roughly 70 to 80 percent of cases. It can appear anywhere from 3 to 30 days after a bite, with an average of about 7 days. It does not always itch or hurt, so a daily glance at the bite area for a few weeks matters more than waiting for it to bother your child.
Call the pediatrician if:
- You see any expanding red rash at or near the bite site
- Your child develops a fever, chills, headache, fatigue, or joint pain in the weeks after a known tick bite
- The tick was attached for more than 24 hours and was an adult-sized deer tick
- You cannot remove the head cleanly
For Pennsylvania families, Lyme is treatable and the outcomes are good when it is caught early. The whole point of the daily check is to catch any bite fast.
Ticks Are Not a Reason to Skip Summer
Pennsylvania summers are too good to lose. Strawberry picking, splash pads, backyard popsicles, evening walks at Norristown Farm Park, soccer at Wissahickon Memorial Park. Ticks live where the fun is, and a few sensible habits put parents back in control instead of behind it.
At our centers, we keep outdoor play areas mowed and clear of leaf litter, we do post-play checks with our older preschoolers as part of the routine, and we keep our families looped in on what we are watching for. If you ever want to see how we handle outdoor time up close, come for a tour. It is the kind of small, consistent detail that makes a difference for families who want their kids outside all summer.