Parents and difficult behaviour: always the problem or part of the solution?

The legislative thrusts of the past decade or so have promoted the position of parents to give them, for example, a greater say in a choice of school, to give them access to their child's attainments in national curriculum assessments, and to allow them to contribute towards an assessment if their child is thought to have special educational needs. Although ‘parental involvement’ has swept through the educational landscape, seemingly leaving none untouched in its wake, the area of problem behaviour in school has been almost totally neglected and the question of how to work positively and productively with parents in such circumstances has largely remained unanswered, or even, some would suggest, unasked.