How to deal with parents who are angry, troubled, afraid, or just plain crazy

How do you deal with high-maintenance parents who never seem happy with the job you are doing? Emotionally charged, often disgruntled, and occasionally abusive parents-sound familiar? The newly revised, Second Edition of Elaine McEwan's bestselling classic will help you manage your most difficult audience. It adds several new features and examples that will give you the confidence and skills you need to handle such situations, including: - over two dozen strategies-enhanced and updated-to defuse emotionally charged parents - an updated, easy-to-administer Healthy School Checklist-determine if your school's culture encourages parents or pushes them over the edge - 50 ways to build parental support for your school - 10 Goals-at-a-Glance to help keep your school-community relations on target - a built-in facilitator's guide-ideal for book groups and staff development, including energizers, suggestions for role-playing, think-alouds, and questions for reflection and discussion. Every educator will find invaluable strategies for handling angry and unresponsive parents and the critical issues that cause misunderstandings. Following McEwan's seven steps of effective problem-solving will help with quick solutions while creating a nurturing, healthy school environment. And, in today's schools, developing a supportive parent-community relationship is essential to everyone's success.