How Public Schools Can Turn Challenges into Opportunities
Written by Jon Barberio, MA, LPCA
I could open this article by stating a maxim such as: "Every challenge is an opportunity for success." But I'm not going to. We've heard it before; just put a silver lining on something difficult and pretend it's better now. That's akin to placing tinsel on a burnt Christmas tree and suggesting we look at how lovely it shimmers. That tree caught fire and that was not the intention; I believe there's far more value in being curious about how a Christmas tree caught fire than in trying to make the end result seem joyful.
Whenever a family comes to me asking to help with a difficult child, I start with the difficult, not the behavioral alteration angle. At first, this is not regularly received with gratitude or an eagerness to book more sessions… but then they become regular clients. If a student is acting out, it is not a random event; we humans aren't that complex. There is a reason. Something is being avoided, something is being gained. The student doesn't know what this is; neither do the parents, school staff, or I, for that matter. But I'll tell you this: I gain far more progress when I am curious about the struggle than when I focus on the lack of results.
Public schools today are serving families who are drowning. These aren't families who lack love for their children or who don't want success—they're families where the parents are working multiple jobs, dealing with their own unprocessed past challenges, navigating systems they don't understand, or managing their own emotional health challenges while trying to raise children who are increasingly dysregulated. When these students walk into our schools, they bring with them the emotional residue of chaotic mornings, food insecurity, inconsistent bedtimes, and parents who are doing their absolute best with tools they were never taught to use.
The traditional school response has been to focus on the behavior: suspend the disruptive student, call the parent who can't leave work, and implement behavior plans that require consistency, which these families often cannot provide. We've been trying to fix the symptom while ignoring the system that created it. This approach doesn't just fail the student—it compounds the family's sense of failure and pushes them further from the very support they desperately need.
Here's where the real opportunity lies: when we stop seeing challenging student behavior as a problem to eliminate and start seeing it as a form of communication from a family system in distress, everything changes. That student who can't sit still isn't defiant—they're carrying the anxiety of a home where basic needs are uncertain. The child who explodes at minor corrections isn't disrespectful—they're functioning from a nervous system that has learned to perceive threat everywhere because, in their experience, safety has been unpredictable.
From a family systems perspective, that "difficult" student is often the identified patient—the family member who carries the symptoms of the entire system's dysfunction. Rather than pathologizing this child, schools have an unprecedented opportunity to become a stabilizing force for the entire family ecosystem. When we recognize that children are primarily products of their environment, we realize that sustainable change happens when we support the environment, not just the child.
Traditional parent-teacher conferences focus on what the child is not doing: not completing homework, not following directions, not meeting expectations. But families struggling with multiple stressors don't need another list of their child's deficits—they need practical tools and genuine support for the overwhelming task of parenting in crisis mode.
“Families struggling with multiple stressors don’t need another list of their child’s deficits—they need practical tools and genuine support for the overwhelming task of parenting in crisis mode.”
Schools have a unique position to offer parent coaching that meets families where they are. This doesn't mean adding another program to overwhelmed counselors' plates. It means shifting our approach from deficit-focused to systems-focused. Instead of "Your child needs to stop disrupting class," the conversation becomes "Let's figure out what your child is trying to communicate through this behavior, and what supports your family needs to help them feel safer."
This approach acknowledges that parenting is incredibly difficult work that most people are doing without adequate training or support. When schools position themselves as partners in understanding the child's needs rather than judges of the family's shortcomings, they create space for authentic collaboration.
Schools often view their job as educating children, full stop. But when we understand that children cannot learn optimally when their basic emotional and relational needs aren't met, schools must expand their understanding of their role. This doesn't mean schools become therapy centers—it means they become systems-aware environments that recognize the interconnection between family stability and student success.
This reframing enables schools to view challenging student behavior as valuable information about what a family needs, rather than as evidence of what a family lacks. The student who hoards food in their backpack is showing us something about scarcity at home. The child who has explosive reactions to change is demonstrating the chaos they're managing internally. These behaviors, when understood through a systems lens, become roadmaps for intervention rather than reasons for punishment.
The opportunity for schools lies in shifting from asking "How do we get this student to comply?" to "What does this family need to help their child succeed?" This shift requires courage because it means acknowledging that sustainable solutions often require addressing issues beyond the school's direct control—poverty, stress, parental emotional health, family conflict, etc.
But here's the crucial insight: schools don't have to solve these larger issues to make a meaningful impact. By providing consistent and predictable support to struggling families, schools can become a stabilizing force that helps families build the capacity for change. This approach might involve flexible communication methods for parents who work non-traditional hours, recognizing that missed parent conferences may reflect scheduling conflicts rather than a lack of care, or offering brief parent coaching conversations that focus on building family strengths rather than correcting deficits.
“By providing consistent and predictable support to struggling families, schools can become a stabilizing force that helps families build the capacity for change.”
True transformation happens slowly and structurally. When schools embrace their role as family supporters rather than just child educators, they position themselves to interrupt generational patterns of struggle. The challenging behaviors we see in students often reflect families doing their best within systems that haven't taught them effective alternatives.
The opportunity isn't to make difficult things easy—it's to make difficult things workable. When schools approach struggling families with curiosity rather than judgment, with systems thinking rather than individual focus, they create the conditions for sustainable change. This approach requires patience, because systems change slowly. It requires humility, because schools must acknowledge the limits of their influence while maximizing their impact within those limits.
But most importantly, it requires a fundamental belief that families are doing their best with the tools they have, and that our job is to help them build better tools, not to judge them for the ones they're currently using. That's where the real opportunity lies—not in the silver lining of struggle, but in the genuine transformation that happens when we meet families in their struggle with understanding, support, and practical help.
“When schools embrace their role as family supporters rather than just child educators, they position themselves to interrupt generational patterns of struggle.”
