My daughter's bad friend

[Mollie M]

I just gone done writing a long explanation about the many troubles associated with my daughter's friendship with a girl she has known for the last 6 years or so (she is now 16). Then the post somehow got lost, and my last 30 minutes of writing were in vain. So here's the gist. My daughter is generally a good-natured, respectful, responsible girl, except when she hangs out with this girl who has a wide reputation as being a troublemaker. (My son's friend's father is a guidance counselor in the district, and he says there's a general consensus she's bad news, and he keeps his own kids far away from her). When my daughter is with the girl, she lies, does drugs, is rude to me. The friend has yelled at me, to my face, and come into my house and totally ignored me. Her divorced parents are checked out and clueless. They bought her a fast sports car. They cover her butt when she gets in trouble. They think she will get into college with a soccer scholarship, and this girl doesn't care about her grades, except to make them good enough to stay on the team. I think it would be a bad idea, and wouldn't work anyway, to ban my daughter hanging out with this friend, but really, EVERY single time she is with this girl, bad stuff happens. And my ex-husband doesn't seem to see this, even though our daughter and this friend have broken into HIS house several times while he was traveling, and partied and trashed the place.

HELP!!!

[Mike Bradley]

Dear "Mom,"
Your daughter's behaviors are way beyond the "don't choose your kid's friends" situation and they sound very unsafe. The problem is that without Dad's support, your kid can divide and conquer you guys, getting Dad to likely side with her against you as being unreasonable. I'd suggest that first you and your ex need to see a counselor to see if there he can see how serious this is, and to hopefully realize that he needs to join forces with you to save the child that both of you love. Use that co-parenting setting to come up with a plan to save her, and do that quickly.
Keep us posted.