ABSTRACT
This chapter defines how to respond to a parent's consultation interview that goes badly wrong. Occasionally very occasionally a parent interview starts to spin remorselessly out of control. In experience, this is often based on the parents arriving at the interview with some mistaken perception of a situation. They then present this in an overly assertive manner. They mask a relationship between the child and parents that has hit problems. His experience suggests that over assertive parents who are loath to listen to the school's viewpoint on an issue are either being manipulated by their child or are covering up for what they know are his or her shortcomings. Although that approach invites the parents' criticism right at the start, it is the best way. One can sometimes see where one comment in one lesson has opened a child's mind to a whole new area of knowledge.
