My husband and I are the proud parents of 3 daughters, ages 15, 12 and 5. For the last 5 years, our middle child has been dealing with emotional issues which are actually undefined. She has been tested for bi-polar disorder, undergone counseling and has been medicated with just about all the anti-depressants you can name. Her official diagnosis is "Depression". She tends to be extremely disrespectful to everyone in the home, rude to her friends when she doesn't get her way, and just all around unhappy it appears.

She doesn't get along well with her older sister very often. And now there seems to be some animosity growing between her and the 5 year old. The gripe at each other constantly. But the kicker was this morning while everyone was attempting to get ready for school. I did not witness the "incident" so I just have to believe whatever they tell me. My 15 year old was messing around and joking with the middle girl and says she stuck her leg out to try and trip the 12 year old, playfully she says. My 12 year old became angry and out of anger kicked her sister, which in turn pissed the 15 year old off and she hit her sister(open handed) on the back. It was at this point I heard a crying howl from the other side of the house and went to check on everyone. The 12 years old was bawling and they were screaming back and forth at each other. The 15 year old has a horrible tendency to hit when she is angry. It has been explained repeatedly that kind of behavior is completely unacceptable. I did not look at my daughters back for at least 20-25 minutes after it happened. When I did see her back it was obvious that she had been hit way too hard, not a playful gesture. At that point, I was so mad at both of them, I went for the punishment that would seem to cut the most. I took both their cell phones away from them. Neither child accepts responsibility for any part of the disagreement this morning.

It just breaks my heart that they have such an intense dislike for one another. I will be the first one to admit that living with the 12 year old is a difficult process. It is a constant battle. We have an appointment for next week to see about adjusting or changing the medication and she has her 2nd appointment with the new counselor this week. The counselor did tell her that no, she couldn't change how she feels about a situation but she could learn better methods of dealing with her feelings and how she should react.

My 15 year old was in tears this morning after dropping the other two off at school. Her statements were that she hated not getting along with her sister. She hated going to her friends house and them getting along with their siblings when she can't get along with hers. She stated that she doesn't know what to do. She says that she can't talk to her as the 12 year old becomes VERY defensive and hateful when you point out an unacceptable behavior. She becomes very rude and disrespectful and starts to yell at whomever is talking to her, be it her sister, mother or father. I have told the 15 year old to walk away until she can calm down or go outside and scream or go punch a pillow. None of my attempts to reconcile these two children work. They seem to hate each other at times. There are times that it has taken every fiber in my body to not strike out when my 12 year old is in my face. I can understand the frustration. I just don't know what to tell the older child anymore.

Please, anyone, how can I keep my family in one piece over this?

You know... has the 15 year old had as much attention as the 12 year old?

That sounds dumb, but when you have a kid that needs your attention, often other siblings feel a bit left out, and feel as though they, too, always have to be responsible for helping parent their sibling--which, as you know, isn't fair.

Do they share a room? If so--get them each their own space to retreat to ASAP.

When they are punished--don't make their punishments equal. Seriously--SOMEBODY starts it--punish that kid more than the other kid. Punish the other still, but don't make the punishment as harsh.

My sister and I are 3 years apart, with me being the older. I wanted desperately to be friends with her when we were younger, and... it never worked. She was constantly angry about something, and life was never fair to her--she got the short end of EVERY stick, according to her. Yet---I was always punished when SHE did something wrong. My parents went out of town overnight, I went to spent time with my gramma, my sister threw a party, and *I* got in trouble for not stopping her. I was grounded for a few weeks because SHE did something wrong. Make sure you're not doing that.

One thing my sister and I do agree upon (now) is that my mom should have kept her nose out of most of our fights. Even if it came down to hair-pulling, nose-punching, nails-scratching, horribly mean fistfights/catfights--occasionally my mom should have just ignored it and let us fight it out. She never did--and my sister and I both harbor resentments that she got involved and gave the other concessions just because she didn't want to hear the arguing anymore (why CAN'T your sister borrow your sweater? It's not like she's going to ruin it wearing it to church!).

If none of that works--get them to a counseling situation. Maybe they both just need to get out all of their problems with each other WITHOUT you around.