She will walk around the house whimpering that the house smells and she can't sleep in a stinky house. She wishes aloud that she had another mother when I place her in "time out" or suggest that she go to school in her pajamas. I need help on what to do with this. She throws fits if we go out and she has decided she does not feel like it.

I have great patience, but it has run out. We have never spanked, but my husband is close to changing that. She does not appear to fear or feel upset at punishments. She would rather not talk about it later. She has started lying. Help! The clothes are a real issue, and the rest is trying on everyone in the family.

While most of your question focused on clothes, I think we both know that the real problem is much bigger. It is understandable that you are losing patience, but hang on a little longer and I think you can help your daughter move in a different direction. How?

First, don't be afraid of losing a few battles. Ignore for now, as much as possible, the preoccupation with clothes, the rudeness, the lying, and all the other defiant, attention-getting behaviors. You will always be playing catch-up if you attend to them individually. Let them go. What you want to do is restructure the whole home environment.

A safe strategy is to reorganize the home so that the goal and focus for all family members is to love and serve one another. If she learns to focus on others and love them she will not have either the time or motivation to engage in all the negative behaviors you are encountering right now. Once you can get her to see that loving and serving others is the main point of family life, the clothes, rudeness, and complaining about the house smelling will drop out naturally. This will take some time, but it is a sure way.

Fortunately, you have some things going for you that will be a real help. First, there is the husband who is willing to spank. That won't be necessary, but his involvement is vital for this plan. Next, you have two younger children who need to be loved and served. So enlist your husband to organize and communicate to your 8-year-old that: "in our family we love and serve one another." This explanation may require many repetitions for many weeks. Do this by both word and example. An 8-year-old is old enough to understand this concept.

To be concrete about what I mean by loving and serving one another, I suggest you do the following: together tend to the younger children, fix meals for the family, with dad do the dishes, dress the other children, bathe and tuck them into bed. Doing these things will prevent her from spending an hour and a half to pick out and complain about her clothes.

You can see that what I am suggesting is not to directly confront her with force and power but to help her acquire a new life perspective that is not "self" but "other" focused. An 8-year-old can do this, and learning this will bring her an enduring happiness. Of course, she is still an 8-year-old, so make sure there are plenty of treats, games, hugs, and good times along the way.