When Jennifer and John Atkinson of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, married four years ago, they had a dream of blending their existing families and having more children, too. Jennifer already had two teenagers, Amanda, 14, and Abbey, 13, and John shares custody of his daughter, Julia, age 10, from a previous marriage. The couple then had two children together: Reese, 4, and Maeve, 2 1/2 years old. However, their hopes of creating a harmonious new family fell short, and they are officially at their wits' end. The oldest, Amanda, treats her mom terribly, openly defying her and bringing Jennifer to tears when she tells her she wishes her mom was dead. Reese has tremendous separation anxiety whenever John leaves the house and actually endangers herself by running pell-mell towards the street when he departs. Jo observes that the parents are coddling the children, being inconsistent about rules and parenting the children differently from each other. Can Jo get through to this family before it fractures?