Creating Drama

This happened couple of weeks ago, and I was reminded of by Miz Kizzle's comment regarding Daughter's love of drama. There is a young man in her program I'll call R. She has had an on again off again relationship with him since she started the program. I have told her that she needs to stop teasing R, and that he doesn't understand the concept of "just friends." She tells him she just wants to be friends and he thinks she wants to be his girl friend and have sex with him. She was furious with me because I wouldn't let her invite him to her birthday party to meet the family.

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R and Daughter are two of the higher functioning individuals in the program. A couple of weeks ago Program Coordinator came upstairs to make some copies, and brought R along with her. I said hi or good morning or something, but didn't enter into a conversation with either of them. Daughter was very jealous, so when PC and R got back downstairs, she informed PC that she shouldn't take R upstairs because I hated him. Of course she said this in front of R, who was hurt. PC tried to reassure him, and finally sent me a text explaining what Daughter had said and asking if I hated R. I told her to tell R I didn't hate him, Daughter was just jealous. She did, and he was somewhat reassured.

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PC was off to a meeting in the afternoon, and R took advantage of her absence to give Daughter a drawing he had done. It was a very crude stick figure with a square body. It was quite clear, though, what was at the bottom of that square body. He helpfully labeled the picture with his name. Daughter, of course, was quite distressed. She didn't show it to any of the staff, but showed it to me when she got upstairs. I knew she hadn't done it from the style of the drawing and the writing on it.

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When shown the picture the next day he acknowledged drawing it and that it was wrong. In addition to the instruction to show the picture to PC, Daughter got a lecture from me. I told her I didn't hate R or anyone else. My instructions to stay away from him were because she was teasing him and that wasn't fair to R. I pointed out that in telling PC in front of him that I hated him, she had hurt his feelings, and the real issue had been her jealousy that he got to go upstairs with PC. She acknowledged that jealousy had prompted her actions. I haven't heard of any incidents between Daughter and R since that one two weeks ago. I know there will be more at some point (staff has been told they need to keep the two of them separated-- that has been their instructions forever, but they don't always follow through). I also know when there is another incident, most if not all of the responsibility for it will belong to Daughter.