Mean Royalty

There is a certain 16-year-old girl in this house with an attitude.  That is very 16, of course, but it really does not seem fair. Noting else about her is age appropriate, but we get the teenage attitude. Great.

Maggie is dong her “Mean Girls” thing lately. Yesterday I would not let her listen to her music because she kicked her nurse a couple of times. That is the third of three things in a row. It seems Mary Margaret is tormenting her classmates as well.

Maggie is the only girl in the class of five. The four boys have varying degrees of disability. Three use wheelchairs, all four use voice output devices to communicate (as does Maggie). A couple of the boys have nursing needs etc etc. These are Maggie’s peers and appropriately so. The five of them really like one another and, in their own way watch out for one another. It is very sweet, until Maggie, aka Lindsay Lohan, mixes it up.

Maggie has figured out how to hit the weakest spot in each of her classmates and use it to her advantage. For example, one of her classmates is exceptionally sensitive. Just as Maggie laughs inappropriately at times, this guy will cry.  Last week Maggie was bored and started pulling on her trach ties. This is guaranteed to bring everyone running. She yanks on the ties so hard she has broken countless trach tubes. It is a big deal when the trach falls out (or breaks) and everything has to come to a stop to deal with it.  Maggie was yanking away and her classmate started “yelling” for her to stop. He was worried she would hurt herself or break the trach. 

Maggie knew she was upsetting him and pulled harder laughing all the way. He started to cry and the poor guy had to be taken for a walk out of the room to calm down. Maggie was very pleased. No one else was.

Later in the week, Maggie was the only one who managed to earn enough points to listen to her music on Friday. Rather than share it with her classmates, she decided she wanted headphones so none of them could hear the music.  Then she vocalized with all her might whenever a new song started. Of course, they could not hear the music, but they could hear her delight.  Mean. Mean. Mean.  I am not sure how she earn points in the class, but I suggested to the nurse maybe it is time to take points away if she does something mean or unkind. 

She has to learn this is no way to behave. There will be consequences. We will fix this.

Maggie may be acting like a princess and treating her classmates like her subjects. If she is the princess, that makes me the Queen. She does not know whom she’s messing with. Now that Leona Helmsley is no longer with us, I can take the title Queen of Mean.  Bring it, sister.