12 year old Daughter witn emotional issues

[starbits]

Your story sounds very familiar to me. I have a 13 year old daughter who is:

1. Very intelligent.
2. Defiant
3. "She doesn't do her homework and lies and tells us she has none."
4. Is failing one class and doing poorly in others.
5. Is in continual on/off relationships mostly with other girls because sombody "dissed" her. Has a number of male friends, all of whom come from broken homes, and most of whom Mom and Dad aren't thrilled with. Her "boyfriend" just got grounded for disappearing in the middle of the night. Parents noticed he was gone at 4:30am, no note etc.
6. Heated up a bic lighter and burned her arm with it to make a scar. She said it was an accident, Dad knows better.
7. Has her own page in Myspace and loves to message back and forth with her friends.
8. Does not do drugs.

Pretty familiar huh? I am sure you had done many of the things we have. Losing priviledges, no horseback riding, no phone calls on school nights for any reason except getting homework assignments, no messaging on school nights. Rewarding her for good grades, loosened privelidges not monitary, and coming down hard for not doing homework. She has been told she will repeat the grade if she fails her courses, no matter what the school says about promotion. She knows I am serious about this and is finally getting the message.
You can't win all the fights so you have to pick the ones that are important to you and then never back down. For me one of the fights was earrings. I agreed to one piercing for an earring and no more of any kind anywhere until she turns 18 and is out of my house. She challenged that by getting a second earring hole. I confiscated all her earrings and banned her from wearing earrings of any kind for two months. "But all my friends have more than one" To which I replied that this was a fight I picked to win, there will be no compromise, I will win, live with it. And she has. Other issues, makeup, haircolor, certain friends I have deemed battles I am willing to compromise on. Pick your battles.
The suggestions of others to relate more is good, but sometimes her crappy mood gets in the way. Something I do, which both my daughters hate, is to tell them "Don't smile. Don't smile, I can see a smile starting. Don't do it." This works even in the middle of a heated argument. If you are persistent you will always get a smile. It stops arguments and helps break up bad moods. It is not a cure-all, but it breaks the mood so a discussion can begin.

My daughter was adopted as a special needs child. Her birth mother is a diagnosed schizophrenic, which can be genitic and passed on to the child. So that is something we have considered in her blowups. So far though she is a heathy, normal, combative, sometimes maladjusted, kid.
Having said all this the one sentence in your message that stood out with big bold ALERT!! ALERT!! signs was this one.

"She has started mantioning how she should just be dead and no one loves her, etc."

This is a statement that can't be ignored. Kids kill themselves all the time for reasons adults think are completely irrational. She needs to see someone immediately. If you can't afford it check with the school, or social services. Catholic social services had a psycologist we were able to take my daughter to when she was younger. We are not Catholic and the fees were minimal.

I wish you and your daughter well. It is not always easy, but there are rewards that make it worthwhile.

Eric