When School is Not Working for Your Child

What is a parent to do: when their child hates school; when homework is a constant battle; when their child has learning disabilities; when school is basically not working? Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption education and support nonprofit, interviews Heather Forbes, author of Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control: A Love-Based Approach for Helping Children With Severe Behaviors.

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How to know when school is not working for your child?
Why is the school environment, or at least some school environments, so hard for some kids?
What can parents do when their child hates school?
Why do some kids turn a 10 minute homework assignment into a 2 hour battle?
When I try to use positive encouragement it backfires. It seems I can’t use negative consequences or positive rewards. So what do I do?
Every morning it is a struggle getting my child ready for school. What to do?
My child is great at school but comes home and completely blows up. It’s like he is two different kids.
My child is completely unmotivated, says “I don’t care,” and goes to his room after school. I’ve taken everything he likes away to get him motivated but it only seems to have made it worse.
Is it best to have educational diagnostic testing done by the school system, or done privately?
My child has an IEP but it is completely behaviorally based. She needs a more relationship based approach to help her. How do I get the school to see this?
My child’s issues are from early childhood trauma. The school sees it as him making bad choices. How do I get them to see it as a trauma / emotional issue rather than a trauma issue?
My child says he is stupid and can’t do the work. I encourage him by telling him he is smart and he gets even madder. Nothing seems to help his self esteem.
When is homeschooling the best option?