life, why art thou so difficult?

i hate to whine. i hate whiners.
i love life. i love to live. and i love to live mostly on my terms.
therein lies the reason why i have difficulty in gulping a lot of things, swallowing terms set by others, though most of the time i work out a middle ground between what i want and what someone else says... but there are instances when i even wholly accept what the other person wants, if reason is better there.
but this one is different... this challenge is unique and to that extent more difficult. it is the first time in life that this is happening... naturally, with every first time, you dither, you are unsure, you are groping, you are looking for a way out, you are thinking how to react, you are weighing your reactions, you are responding, you are negotiating (covertly and overtly, with words, with gestures, with the way you look or stare), you are conscious of every word you say (aware that you are judged every single time)... and there are many more subconscious processes that your mind is engaged in.
it is in view of this, that i have not been here... i have come and gone... not stayed on, not elaborated, not felt like talking. my silence means my mind has been preoccupied...
today, a while back when i opened the edit post menu, i saw seven drafts that i have saved over the past one week... and believe me, i did not feel like continuing on even a single one of those...
i am dealing with questions, some of which are below, and i know that this test is mine alone, that i will have to figure out all the answers myself, that there are no second chances, that it is only the future that will let me know the correctness/incorrectness of the choices i make now, that i need to be patient and pleasantly so, that i cannot show that i am worried, that i need to behave normally...
1. what do you do when your child starts contradicting you on every single thing -- from food to dress to friends to how she is/should be occupied?
2. what do you do when she questions you relentlessly?
3. what do you do when she, though not very openly, shows that your opinion does not count, that it is useless?
4. what do you do when you know that though she does not say it, she is not taking you seriously?
5. what is the magic wand that will lead us out of this state? more love/less love; more time/less time; more space/less space; more freedom/less freedom; more concern/less concern... most important, how much is more? and how much is less?
till date, i have dealt with life more rationally than emotionally. i have tried to keep a balance between the head and the heart. i have found my own way out, my own answers to most questions in life.
hope this will be no exception.

PS: if someone reads this post with just the previous one, they could have doubts on my sanity... but such i guess is life.