What food or medicine stops early greying?

Help with fixing and understanding Bad behavior in 7 year old daughter?

• We have been trying to work on this problem for awhile now. My step-daughter is 8 ½, but has lived with me and her father for the past 4 years. We have tried therapy, scare tactics (i.e. jail), education, and taking her to the doctor. She sneaks out of the house in any ways possible. She sneaks/”steals” things. When caught and/or confronted, she will deny everything. She recently has begun to lie to cover up for other people and take the blame. i.e. We sent a phone with the kids on a visit and was upset that my mom called, so she shattered the screen. My mom heard the entire thing. My step-daughter was told to tell us that she fell on it and it broke. Luckily, my step-son kept blurting out “mommy lied! Tell the truth!” She sneaks into food. Once a month when I go through to thoroughly clean her room, I will usually remove at least one full bag of rotten food/drinks/etc. She has even peed inside a candle, on a dog bed, and her pile of clean laundry and then hidden it. We have explained that her doing this just keeps rodents and bugs coming to the house and will make us sick. Because of the rodents, we have sticks of poison in drawers and cabinets that they frequent, but I find fruit and utensils (steak knives) hidden in drawers. Today I went around to a side of the house where my husband has his broken down truck and found a jar of goober hidden that I had been looking for. I had just bought it a week before. I have found my vitamins and medicine dumped and hidden in the ironing pile in the laundry room along with a huge bottle of water. We catch her with food hidden in her pants (down the underwear and in the crotch). Today, while cleaning her room, I found she had gotten into the “adult” chest in the master bedroom, and gotten into my aroma therapy oils, my sugar scrubs, pencils, and herb/spices. She has become violent. When she feeds the dogs, she will put food and water just out of reach or dump everything in front of them so they can't have it, but tell us they ate it all. She punches her brother in the face and pinches/hits him. With him, we punish and the behavior stops. With her it just seems to encourage it. We offer her food and always ask to make sure she's full. We provide “healthy” snacks and tell her all she has to do is let us know she is going to grab some. She freaks out if we leave her alone (even when stepping outside to get the mail) and comes running after us. We know she had to fend for herself and “raise” her brother while living with her mom (her dad was deployed a lot in the army), but it has been 4 years of a secure and consistent environment with her dad and I. Her dad has turned down deployments as a civilian for the company he's with to help me with her. She is very intelligent and we encourage it (although, this year she doesn't care about school). We keep her involved in activities (dance and sports). We constantly tell her we love her. She began to bring up her mom with her therapists and the therapist told her her mom wasn't an issue and those feelings could be addressed at a later time. My daughter doesn't want to go back any more. I am searching for a new therapist, but without knowing what's wrong with her, I'm afraid and I won't find one that's right for her. The behavior is only getting worse. Any other ideas of how to deal with the behavior? We live in southwest TN. Any recommendations for therapists/psychologists? Any and all help is appreciated.

• Answer:

  Military/Boarding school.