Apologies for the long post - My daughter is 12 and started yr 7 this year and has no self control. She has been suspended for bringing a knife to school, not to hurt anyone but to show off to a boy. But then to get out of trouble and not reveal why she brought it, she told them she wanted to kill herself, so we’ve been seeing professionals but now she laughs because she had no intention of hurting herself, she just wanted to impress the boy, she looked us dead in the eyes and with no emotion laughed at us for worrying she would hurt herself. She is stealing money from me, I lock away phone and she goes through my stuff and takes it back, I put on screen time she figures out how to get around it. I took away laptop but she needs it for school, but I’ve got all websites now blocked. She is constantly lying, always hiding food under her bed, I just can’t seem to get through to her. Yesterday she went to the beach with grandparents and didn’t come back when they were calling to her but her sister did, so we know she could hear, and ended up being caught in a rip and lifeguards had to get her. I want to ground her but don’t seem to know how to ground her without punishing everyone, so we end up including her, but then she will laugh in our face. I don’t know how to get through to her and keep her safe. She doesn’t come home from school when she is meant to, so I will now pick her up and drop her off each morning and afternoon, I just feel so depressed and don’t know how to help her. Professionals just tell me she is a sweet girl, very smart, she seems fine, I need someone really to tell me how to raise her, what steps to take, because I am failing as a parent. My husband wants to send her to his mother, he is fed up, she doesn’t care, but I can’t bare the thought of her not being at home, but I am starting to agree maybe I am not competent to handle this. How do I ground her and keep household running? How do I ground her without making her feel unloved? How do I make her understand her consequence have actions when her suspension was almost a holiday as she just had to sit in the office and colour in and help out. (She loved it!) How do I make her understand stealing and lying is wrong. How do I not fail her? Thank you for your help! ... View more