Disconnecting an element from any/unspecified parent container in WPF

NEW:

I propose to use base classes instead of all other listed. Try this code, this 3 classes are the most use cases for your needs. As I understand, it's almost the same as previos ^)

  var parent = VisualTreeHelper.GetParent(child);
  var parentAsPanel = parent as Panel;
  if (parentAsPanel != null)
  {
      parentAsPanel.Children.Remove(child);
  }
  var parentAsContentControl = parent as ContentControl;
  if (parentAsContentControl != null)
  {
      parentAsContentControl.Content = null;
  }
  var parentAsDecorator = parent as Decorator;
  if (parentAsDecorator != null)
  {
      parentAsDecorator.Child = null;
  }

OLD: As far as I remember, you can use Visual type as parent type and try to call RemoveVisualChild method.

You may write a helper class with an extension method:

public static class RemoveChildHelper
{
    public static void RemoveChild(this DependencyObject parent, UIElement child)
    {
        var panel = parent as Panel;
        if (panel != null)
        {
            panel.Children.Remove(child);
            return;
        }

        var decorator = parent as Decorator;
        if (decorator != null)
        {
            if (decorator.Child == child)
            {
                decorator.Child = null;
            }
            return;
        }

        var contentPresenter = parent as ContentPresenter;
        if (contentPresenter != null)
        {
            if (contentPresenter.Content == child)
            {
                contentPresenter.Content = null;
            }
            return;
        }

        var contentControl = parent as ContentControl;
        if (contentControl != null)
        {
            if (contentControl.Content == child)
            {
                contentControl.Content = null;
            }
            return;
        }

        // maybe more
    }
}