There is a phrase I find myself coming back to in conversations with parents and with school teams: “Kids do well if they can.” It is a simple line, and it changes the entire conversation about behavior when you take it seriously.
When a child cannot do something, whether the thing is reading, regulating their emotions, or following a complicated set of classroom rules, the answer is not consequences. The answer is teaching. And yet, in school after school, the response to disability-related behavior is to issue more consequences, more loss of privileges, more time-outs, more office referrals, often with little to show for it.
I want to talk about why punishment does not work for disability-related behavior, what does work, and what you can ask the school to do differently if you are watching your child get punished for things they cannot yet help.
The difference between will and skill
The first concept worth understanding is the difference between a will deficit and a skill deficit.
A will deficit means a child is choosing not to do something they are fully capable of doing. They have the skill. They have the impulse control. They have the language. They are choosing not to use any of it because they are testing limits, seeking attention, or trying to avoid an unpleasant task.
A skill deficit means a child does not have the skill yet. They cannot do what is being asked of them, or they cannot do it consistently under stress, or they cannot do it when sensory input is overwhelming, or they cannot do it when their executive function is pushed past its limits.
Punishment can be effective when the issue is genuinely about will, though even then it is rarely the most effective response. Punishment is almost completely ineffective when the issue is about skill. A child who does not have the skill cannot perform the skill better because you took something away.
What disability-related behavior often looks like
A lot of behavior that gets labeled as defiance, disruption, or disrespect at school is actually a skill issue. Some examples:
- A child with autism who melts down during transitions is not refusing to comply. They are dysregulated by the unpredictability and sensory shift of transitions.
- A child with ADHD who blurts out in class is not being rude. They are showing the impulsivity that is part of their neurodevelopmental profile.
- A child with anxiety who refuses to do a presentation is not being defiant. They are responding to a level of fear that overrides their reasoning.
- A child with a learning disability who tears up their homework is not lazy. They are managing intense shame about a task they cannot do, in a way that an eight-year-old has tools to manage.
- A child who escalates in groups is often communicating that they cannot regulate around peers without adult support.
In each of these cases, punishment treats the behavior as if the child made a choice. But the underlying skill, whether emotional regulation, impulse control, working memory, or processing speed, was not in place to make a different choice.
What punishment actually does
When you punish a skill deficit, several things happen.
The behavior often does not improve, because the underlying skill has not been taught.
The child learns to associate the school environment, the teacher, or the class with shame, fear, and failure. This makes the behavior worse over time, not better.
The relationship between the child and the adult who is meant to be supporting them deteriorates. Children learn from adults they trust, and when trust is broken, the channel for teaching closes.
The child often develops avoidance behaviors. They start refusing to come to school. They claim they are sick. They shut down entirely.
In short, punishment without skill-building escalates the very behavior the school is trying to reduce.
What works instead
What works is teaching. Specifically, teaching the underlying skills the child is missing, in a structured and consistent way, while removing or modifying the demands that are currently exceeding their capacity.
In the school context, there are a few specific tools that get this right when they are used well.
Functional Behavior Assessment
A Functional Behavior Assessment, often shortened to FBA, is a process the school uses to understand the function of a child’s behavior. The FBA looks at what happens before the behavior, what the behavior is, and what happens after. The goal is to identify the function the behavior serves for the child.
Common functions include:
- Escape from a difficult task
- Access to attention
- Access to a preferred item or activity
- Sensory regulation
Once the function is known, the school can teach the child more appropriate ways to meet the same need. If a child is hitting peers to escape an overwhelming task, the school can teach them to ask for a break and can also modify the task so it is not consistently triggering escape.
You can request an FBA in writing if your child’s behavior has become a recurring issue at school. The school is required to consider the request.
Behavior Intervention Plan
If an FBA identifies patterns, the school can develop a Behavior Intervention Plan, often shortened to BIP. The BIP is a written plan that describes the behaviors of concern, the function of the behaviors, the strategies the school will use to teach replacement skills, and the supports that will be put in place to prevent the behaviors.
A good BIP is proactive. It is not a list of consequences. It is a plan for what the school will do to teach the child the skills they are missing and to set the environment up so the child can succeed.
If your child has a BIP, ask to read it carefully. Look for specifics. A BIP that consists primarily of “if the child does X, the consequence will be Y” is not a real intervention plan. A real plan describes what the school will do to teach a replacement skill, how progress will be measured, and what environmental changes will be made.
Manifestation determination
Federal law includes a protection for students with disabilities related to discipline. If a student with an IEP is going to be removed from their educational placement for more than ten days, including suspensions, the IEP team has to hold a manifestation determination meeting. The purpose of this meeting is to decide whether the behavior was a manifestation of the child’s disability, or whether it resulted from the school’s failure to implement the IEP.
If the team decides yes to either of those, the child cannot be disciplined the way a non-disabled peer would be. They must remain in their educational program, and the IEP team must address the underlying issues.
This is an important protection that many parents are never told about. If your child with an IEP is being suspended, removed, or transferred for behavior, ask whether a manifestation determination is required.
What to ask for
If your child is receiving consistent disciplinary action for behavior and the behavior is not improving, here is what I would ask for:
- A Functional Behavior Assessment, in writing
- A Behavior Intervention Plan if one is not already in place, or a review of the existing one
- A meeting to discuss whether the current educational program is appropriate for your child’s needs
- Data on how often the targeted behaviors are occurring and whether they are increasing or decreasing
- A discussion of what the school is doing to teach the underlying skills, not just to manage the behavior
The shift from “what consequence will we apply” to “what skill will we teach” is the shift that changes outcomes.
A final thought for parents
Watching a child be punished repeatedly for behavior that is part of their disability is one of the most painful experiences a parent can have. It is also one of the most isolating, because the school often communicates as if the child is the problem and you are the one who needs to fix them.
You are not alone, and you are not wrong to push back. Your child is communicating that something in the current environment is not working. The job of the adults around them is to figure out what they are communicating and to teach the skills they need, not to punish them harder until they comply.
If you are in this situation and not sure how to advocate, that is exactly the kind of conversation I can help you walk through. There are real tools available, and they work when they are applied well.