I make the kids do this (teaching)

Each year, I have criers in my class. Children who are emotionally fragile. I attempt to address the issue without giving too much attention to the actual crying. For those of you have cried, sometimes attention to the crying actually makes you cry harder and I try to avoid that in the classroom. My stiff-upper-lipped New Englander-teacher friend says I make the kids cry because I give them the space to cry. I think of it as my karma. I cried a lot in elementary school. Now, I'm an elementary school teacher and I have the criers.

Today, I had my first crying event for the year and it was an actual event. I have 11 students. 3 were in tears and 2 were on the verge. It all started when I was reading Fudge-a-Mania. [Who knew Judy Blume could have this type of impact?] I had to have two private conferences and a slight intervention. It became obvious that I was about to loose my entire class to the dark side and I had to take action fast. So, I made all of the students sit and say nice things about one another. It was very hippie-dippy. But the situation so warranted that kind of reaction.