[sandycove]

JD…

What you need desperately, before counselling, is a thorough, professional assessment. There is clearly something clinical going on here. You will all need to pull together to define the problem. A diagnosis is no panacea, and might even be somewhat in error, but it will at least give you all something to get your arms around and serve a starting point for any number of therapeutic alternatives. It will also free you all from the bad girl/good girl trap.

I expect your daughter will resist at first, deny that she is “different,” and blame-game the issue.

If you’ll permit, I’d also avoid all but the mildest punishments and stick to unemotional timeouts and isolation strategies. Emotional responses just tend to up the ante and fuel the fire. This is not a statement on punishment per se; it’s just that punishment is counterproductive in many clinical situations and you don’t know what you’re facing yet.

I speak as the older brother of a brilliant 57-year-old professional woman who has coped with severe mental problems all her life, as the father of a 36-year-old son (and two older step-children), and the father (yes!) of 8-year-old twin girls.

One of my twins has Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism. Many of her symptoms mirror your daughter’s. It is extremely unlikely that your daughter is an Aspie, at 12 (and most Aspies are boys), but something’s up…

Best wishes…