Question

Hello,

My question today is regarding my daughter's school. She is having serious behavior problems in school (she's currently in a behavior school and the only girl in a class of 5-6 boys). The biggest problems they are having with her is physical aggression, throwing, threatening, cursing when not getting her way/upset. She has just been suspended from school for 2 days for attacking a random student that walked by her while she was "upset" from recently getting into trouble. We warned the school that the suspension was not going to change her behavior upon returning (as she has been suspended before in the past for similar incidents and it never changed anything, partially due to the schools way of handling these situations and partially due to her learning disabilities and poor problem solving skills). The second day after returning to school she got mad and spit at the aide and punched her in the throat. The school now wants to have a meeting with my husband and me, along with the IEP case worker, on what else to do. My husband and I know a big part of the problem is that our daughter is addicted to the attention she is receiving when acting out in school, as well as the adults entering into power struggles with her during these times. The other problems we see is out of desperation they are relying on bribing/rewarding her to have a "good" day, which is obviously not working and is only reinforcing the behaviors they are trying to stop. It appears that she is manipulating the adults and running the show with her behavior. We're not really sure what to suggest to them at this point and are wondering what your advice would be?

Thank you.