> I don't presume to understand the details of the situation, but it seems to me that sometimes it's the people with "issues" who need most to be reminded at the holidays that they're loved and cared about.

This has been going on over a year now, and it's a situation that no-one seems able to break the deadlock. Showing care and attention just seems wasted all the time - every time anyone shows any care it's either thrown back with a sarcastic comment, or it's met with violence. We're not talking about a 12-year-old kid who has done petty theft. Despite the issue that has gone to the formal authorities, there are at least two instances where she has lost her temper and tried to push people down the stairs.

Without going into too much detail, the problem which is going to court is because she's not doing something as opposed to something she has done, and she hasn't done this in over a year, which has now gone to the authorities. It's only detrimenting her ultimately.

> Must have? Pssh. I've never owned one and survive just fine. :-P

I know the feeling. But my family like to be able to get hold of me in emergencies, and I do travel out of the office occasionally, so having a mobile for me is generally a good thing. But in her case, it is purely a status thing among her friends.

>
> As an avid WoW player myself, I can understand the draw of video games very well. It could be that it's not the character she's so concerned about, but the fact that there's a community of people she relates to with whom she can associate on her own terms. Just a slightly different perspective from a fellow gamer. :-}

Having actually seen the 'conversations' that occur on RS, it's not the sort of thing that I would class as a community. Think of the stereotypical "12-year-old AOL user", and you pretty much have the conversations down straight.

She is becoming more and more sociopathic as time goes on, and it isn't going to get better. Ultimately I feel that it's because the family have given in to her over tiny things and now she has gone too far the other way, without any real sense of discipline or morality.

What galls me is that when it goes to court, I'm sure I'm going to be called as a character witness and I know that when I get there, I'm going to have to tell them exactly what she's like. I don't want to see anyone sentenced in court but that's what it will come to.

UK law is a wonderful thing. Parents are responsible for the actions of their children when they have tried everything reasonable - and in some cases, the unreasonable to a degree - to get her to do what she is supposed to do, but she just won't do it.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to rant.

Needless to say that my observation of cancelling the RS subscription to put a little towards court costs and/or any fines that come out of it didn't go down too well, but they're talking about a spell of several months in prison (for the parents) or a fine of up to GBP 5,000.