Just on your point about step-parents and discipline, Lulu - I totally agree that step-parents need to tread very carefully.

My DSD came to live with us for 8 months last year at the age of 14, because she wasn't getting on with her mum in the US.

Before she got here, I said to DP that there was no way I was going to even attempt to discipline a 14-year-old who I didn't know from a bar of soap. DP works shifts too so that meant that he is not home in the evenings for one week out of two so it was just DSD and I.

It worked quite well.

DP had a rule that she had to be home by the time it was dark. So if she wanted to stay out later to go to a friend's house, she would have to call him. Ditto if she came home early and then wanted to meet up with a friend. She would ask me and I would simply tell her to phone her dad because he sets the rules. And if she was home later than she'd agreed with her dad, I'd just say to her that I wasn't going to tell her off because I wasn't her mother, but I WAS going to tell her dad. I actually don't remember her breaking the rules too many times - maybe once, twice at the most.

Ditto for when her dad wanted her to call her grandpa. She whinged about it and I think she expected me to lay down the law for her to call him. I didn't - I simply said, I can't MAKE you call him but I know your dad wants you to and I'll be honest with your dad and say that you haven't. She called her grandpa 10 minutes later.

It's a difficult line to tread but it takes time and I think you need to be ruthlessly fair.

If she'd been here longer, I would gradually have taken a more involved approach and not left everything to her dad - particularly about her chores but I really think you need to tread carefully at first and build up some sort of mutual respect.