What Can You Ask Your Child's School For?
A Therapist’s Thoughts for Parents of Struggling Students
You got another call from school today.
Maybe it was the office asking you to come pick him up. Maybe it was an email from his teacher, the third one this month, using words like "disruptive" and "refusing to participate." Or maybe there was no call at all, just your daughter in the car line with her jaw clenched, saying nothing the whole way home.
You've already tried things. You've had the talks. You've taken away the tablet. You've given it back and tried being gentler instead. You've bribed, negotiated, and lost your temper and felt terrible about it.
And school keeps calling.
Here's something a lot of parents don't realize: you can ask the school for help. Not just for a conference after something goes wrong, but for actual support, put in place on purpose.
Most parents don't know what's available. That's not your fault. Nobody hands you a list.
Why does dealing with your child's school feel so overwhelming?
Schools have their own language, their own meetings, and their own processes, and none of it gets explained to parents up front. You are usually meeting the system for the first time on one of the worst days of your child's year. It makes sense that it feels confusing and stressful.
Kelly Off, one of our therapists in Columbia, worked inside Missouri schools from 2002 through 2026. She taught in elementary and middle schools, worked as a school counselor, and later served as a regional coordinator supporting multiple buildings. She has sat on the school side of those meetings hundreds of times.
When I asked her what she wished parents knew when their student started having difficulty in school, she said, "Schools are made up of people who genuinely want kids to succeed. Having spent years as both a teacher and school counselor, I've seen how much educators care, even when resources and time are limited."
It may not always feel that way when you’re getting those calls. You may feel the frustration from the person you’re talking to and it’s easy to feel like they no longer even like your student. When you're getting call after call, it can start to feel like the school is against you.
However, even when it feels otherwise, the truth is that usually the school wants your student to be successful. Usually everyone in the building is doing their best with the time and staffing they have. However, they’re so busy that often nobody has stepped back to ask the bigger question about what's actually going on with your kid.
That is where you as the parent step in and ask those hard questions.
What is your child's behavior at school actually telling you?
Behavior at school is communication. A child who is struggling academically, socially, or emotionally often does not have the words to explain what's happening inside. The behavior everyone is reacting to is usually the last step in a longer chain, not the beginning of it.
Kelly puts it two ways she comes back to often. The first is simple: "The behavior is telling us something."
The second is a shift she tries to help families make. Instead of "What's wrong with my child?" the question becomes "What might my child be trying to tell us through this behavior?"
This is not about excusing anything. Kids still need limits. But if the behavior is being driven by anxiety, overwhelm, a learning difference, something happening at home, or something that happened a long time ago, then adding another consequence usually doesn't touch the actual problem. You get short-term compliance at best. Often you don't even get that.
Anxiety in kids doesn't always look like worry. Sometimes it looks like arguing, refusing work, or blowing up over something small. We wrote more about that in our post on what triggers anxiety in a child.
What can you actually ask your child's school for when your child keeps getting in trouble?
You can request a meeting with school staff to talk through concerns before things reach a crisis point. Depending on what's going on, schools may be able to offer behavioral supports, check-ins with a school counselor, social and emotional interventions, classroom accommodations, or a problem-solving meeting with the educational team.
Most parents wait until they're called in. You don't have to wait.
Here are things worth asking about:
A problem-solving meeting. You can ask for a sit-down with the people who see your child during the day. That might include the teacher, the school counselor, an administrator, and anyone else involved. The point is to get everyone's observations in one room instead of hearing about your child in pieces.
Check-ins with the school counselor. Sometimes a brief, regular touchpoint with one trusted adult in the building changes a kid's whole week.
Classroom accommodations. These can be small and still make a real difference. A quiet place to reset. Permission to leave the room before things escalate instead of after. Modified assignments during a hard stretch. A signal the teacher and your child agree on ahead of time.
Behavioral supports. Schools often have structured plans they can put in place. Ask what exists at your child's building specifically, because it varies.
Information you're not getting. Ask when the hard moments happen. Which class, what time of day, what came right before. Patterns show up fast when someone actually writes them down.
What should you say when you ask for a meeting?
Come into meetings with the school curious rather than combative, and be specific about what you're seeing at home. The goal of the first meeting is not to “win” anything. It's to get everyone looking at the same picture so you can build a plan together.
A few questions that tend to open things up:
What are you seeing during the day that I might not be seeing at home?
When during the day is it hardest for him?
What have you already tried, and what happened?
What supports are available in this building?
What would help you help her?
That last one changes the temperature of a meeting more than almost anything else.
If you're not sure how to frame the ask, or the meeting didn't go the way you hoped, that's something a therapist who knows the school system can help you work through.
What if your child is the one with the "big behaviors"?
Some parents are dealing with more than a rough patch. If your child has been suspended, sent home repeatedly, or described in ways that made your stomach drop, you may have already had the experience of asking for help and feeling like doors were closing.
We want to speak directly to you for a minute.
You may have called around and gotten a lot of "we're not the right fit for that." Some clinicians are cautious about kids with significant behavioral challenges, or kids carrying trauma histories that show up as aggression. That caution is sometimes appropriate. These kiddos truly do need help from a therapist who is familiar with children with bigger struggles, but it leaves families stranded.
Kelly has spent her career with these kids. She's worked with them in classrooms, in counselor offices, and across multiple school buildings. She's seen what happens to a child when every adult in their life has started bracing for the worst. And she's seen what happens when someone finally gets starts to look at what is going on underneath the behaviors.
How do you know it's working?
The first sign usually isn't perfect attendance or a spotless behavior chart. It's that your child starts believing they can handle hard things, and the resistance softens a little.
Kelly describes it this way: "Maybe they still feel anxious, but they get in the car. Maybe they walk into school with support instead of refusing altogether."
Parents often notice fewer power struggles first. More willingness to talk about what's actually making school difficult. Less bracing at 7am.
Those early wins matter more than they look like they do, because confidence grows through successful experiences, even small ones. Progress here is rarely a straight line, and it usually starts smaller than parents expect.
When is it time to add therapy for a child with behavior problems at school?
If your child's emotions or behaviors are consistently getting in the way of their ability to enjoy school, make friends, take part in family life, or bounce back from ordinary challenges, it's worth reaching out.
Therapy isn't only for crisis situations. Sometimes it's about helping a child build emotional skills before patterns get more entrenched.
It's also not just about the child. For younger kids especially, parents are part of the work. You and the therapist figure out together how to support your child at home and at school, which often means you get some support too. Navigating a school system while worrying about your kid is genuinely stressful, and that part usually goes unacknowledged.
If you're trying to sort out whether what you're seeing warrants professional help, our decision guide for parents walks through it in more detail.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a diagnosis before the school will help?
No. You can request a meeting and ask about supports without any diagnosis. Some formal processes (like getting an IEP or even a 504) have their own requirements, but a conversation about what your child needs is always available to you.
What if the school says there's nothing they can do?
Ask what the next level of support looks like and who makes that decision. Sometimes the answer at the classroom level is different from the answer at the building or district level. Knowing who to ask matters as much as what you ask.
My child is fine at home and only struggles at school. Is that still a real problem?
Yes. Plenty of kids hold it together all day and fall apart the second they're somewhere safe, and plenty do the reverse. Where the behavior shows up tells you something useful about what's driving it. It doesn't tell you the problem isn't real.
Will therapy make my child talk about things they're not ready to talk about?
A child therapist doesn't expect trust on day one. The first several sessions are usually about getting to know your child, what they're interested in, what's going well, and what they wish adults understood about them. Kids are very good at telling whether an adult is genuinely interested in them. The rest tends to follow once that's established.
Begin Child and Teen Counseling in Columbia, MO
If school has become the hardest part of your week, you don't have to figure out the next step by yourself.
Kelly Off, MS, LPC works with kids, teens, and young adults at our Columbia office, and she brings more than twenty years inside Missouri schools to that work. She understands what your child is walking into every morning, what the adults in that building are managing, and how exhausting it is to be the parent in the middle of it.
Depending the specific issue, we have several other clinicians who have unique expertise working with children as well.
Aspire Counseling is a trauma and anxiety focused practice with offices in Columbia and Lee's Summit and telehealth available across Missouri. We track outcomes on real measures so families can see whether therapy is actually helping, not just hope that it is.
To get started, reach out online or call our Columbia office at 573-328-2288. If you're in the Kansas City area, our Lee's Summit office is at 816-287-1116.
Whenever you're ready for effective care and lasting change, we're here.
Kelly Off, MS, LPC is a Licensed Professional Counselor at Aspire Counseling in Columbia, Missouri. She worked in Missouri schools from 2002 through 2026 as a teacher, school counselor, and regional coordinator, and she works with clients ages 5 through their twenties. Written with Kelly Off. Editorial support by Jessica Oliver, MSW, LCSW, founder and Clinical Director of Aspire Counseling.
