Be your kid's collaborative partner, but also be a collaborative partner with the folks at school. Schools can be pretty unilateral too. Show them you know how to collaborate. Show them this is not about power. Let them know detentions and suspensions and paddling don't solve the problems that are affecting kids' lives. Those problems can be identified and solved but not by being punitive.

You want to teach all kids the skills that are on the better side of human nature: empathy, appreciating how one's behavior is affecting other people, resolving disagreements in ways that do not involve conflict, taking another's perspective, honesty.

Being completely in control is a fantasy.

My advice to educators is collaborate with parents; they know a lot about their kids.

We have forgotten that those skills on the more positive side of human nature have to be taught, have to be modeled, have to be practiced.

If we're being unilateral, then communication does not happen, the relationship does not happen.

Challenging behavior is just a signal, the fever, the means by which the kid is communicating that he or she is having difficulty meeting an expectation.