I have been in a relationship with this guy for over 3 years.  We decided to move in together this past spring and are even discussing marriage.  I do not have children of my own, but he has a wonderful 7 yr old daughter, whom he shares time with her mother.  I am aware that many of her problems come from Mom vs Dad.  He has been asking me for ideas of how to handle her (which is why I am posting this).  She is a sweet girl, but we are having trouble where she doesn't want to mind her own dad (he does try, but he doesn't always want to be the bad guy). The problems we are experiencing are that she refuses to want to do things like brush her hair.  That one little chore gets blown out of proportion and turns into a big argument between them.  I used to stay out of it, but he is asking for help from me now.  She will listen to me to some extent, and she will confide in me sometimes about what upsets her.  I will say there is a definite problem of her Mom saying things to her to affect her relationship with her dad.  A big concern we have is that she barely passed the first grade and her second grade teacher has informed us that she is very concerned about the child.  She has many tardies and missed days already (due to her mom), but her schoolwork is suffering greatly.  She knows the material, but refuses to act like she does.  For example, she is learning number sequences... She could tell me 5, 10, 15, 20 and so on, but when I ask her what would come after 15 she can't give me a logical answer.  She cannot call items by their proper name... She wanted to dry her hands and could not come up with the word "towel", she kept asking for "that thing that dries".  I know this is something complicated, but I am really hoping for some tips or books or something that her father and I could do to improve on at least some of these issues.  He is going to court to fight for equal parenting time, we're hoping that we can work with her more to improve her grades.  I know puberty is approaching and I would like to try to get somewhere before then.