Fortunately it is not her father who gives her everything she wants. Its the other side of the family, which means we have no control over it. She points, she gets. But she lives with us full time, and has for the past 4 years. She has learned the meaning of the word "no" while living with us, and has always been a great kid, very respectful. This behavior is new to her. I think it has something to do with hormones, because 11 year old girls are swimming with them. It seems as though she's waged this personal war to try her best to be miserable living with us no matter what we do because she's decided she'd rather live with her mom (not an option - drug addict ex-con who is always surrounded by fellow ex-cons). Her mom is out of prison now so she doesn't understand why she can't live there and we can't explain it without making her look like a bad guy (which we've been instructed not to do by a counselor...it not really age appropriate anyway). Its a tough situation, but her father is not one to back down and let her walk all over him. He's had enough too. There's only so many allowances you make for a kid who is sad because she misses her mom.

When did we all get into these ridiculously complicated situations???

You're welcome! Sometimes kids need to be reminded of just how lucky they are to have what they have. My mom always used to make us play the "glad" game from Pollyanna - where you all say something that you have to be glad about. Kinda lame, but it was a great positive attitude, especially the kids are so grumpy about something so minuscule!

Oh, trust me, I make her do chores. Every Saturday morning she has her list to do while I do mine (Dad is at work), and its never without complaint, but she gets it done. She never had to do any when she lived with her mom, so it took some training to get her to realize its part of her responsibility. I still meet parents who say they don't believe in making their kids do chores, and I can't understand it. How are they ever going to learn to live on their own if they can't do anything for themselves?? Isn't it our job to kick them out of the nest so they'll learn to fly??

I appreciate your support, but honestly I can't believe that disengaging is really the right answer for me here. Like I said, this behavior is new to her and actually most BM's I'm friends with say "Yeah, she's 11...only more of that to come I'm afraid!" I've put 4 years into working on this relationship with her and being a mom to her when her mom couldn't pull it together, and I can't believe that I've put in all this hard work to develop this relationship just to disengage and give up. If that were the case, I'd just support the idea of her going to live with her mom and say "to hell with her, who cares if she becomes a drug addict?" The fact is that I do care what happens to her and her future, and I couldn't put her back in that situation knowing that her future was more than likely doomed.

I know its something we have to work through as a family, and even if she is a PITA, she is my family and needs me and her father to be there for her. Our counselor warned us that "its always easy to hate the safe parents," which meant that because we're the ones that are always there for her, we had this coming eventually, because she has so much anger about her situation not being able to live with her mom. Most kids go through these devilish phases, and I think with the right application of discipline, we'll get through this.

My sister in law put it this way to me yesterday, that when her daughters (she had 4, two of them twins) went through this phase she would say to them "Listen, you're only job in this conversation is to be a nice person, and if you can't do that, you go to your room and think about it and I'll be happy to talk to you when you decide to be a nice person." It seems a little patience will go a long way, as long as I figure out how to address it correctly.

Don't get me wrong, I do not blame any of you who decide to disengage and am not saying its the wrong decision for you or anyone else, I just feel like we're all in very unique and complicated situations and we have to make the right decisions for our own relationships. I do temporarily disengage when I need a break from the stress of it all, but I want her to know that she always has a parent in me that she can turn to if she needs to and can count on to always be there, unlike her mother has been able to do so far. I'm due with my first child in September, and I'd be crazy to think that there won't be trying times and really difficult situations with my own kid, and of course I will need to be united with my husband when dealing with parenting decisions there too. I guess I'm both lucky and unlucky that he considers me an equal teammate in parenting his daughter, because it is both rewarding and stressful.

Anyway, again thanks for the support and advice from all of you. For the record, I didn't actually give her this letter, it was one of those "let your feelings out" letters. Sometimes you just need to write a letter!

Wishing you all stress and drama free days with both skids and BM/BD's!