Now that I am in Kindergarten, I have a lot of students who turn on the water works when they are caught doing something wrong or do not get their way. I have a particular student, who we will call Brian, who cried around four times a day. If he doesn't understand the work, he cries. If someone skips him in line, he cries. If he gets a problem wrong, he cries. If I don't call on him during morning meeting, he cries. I can honestly say that there has not been a day where this students has been completely dry.
Then, I have a little girl, who we shall call Mary, who throws these temper tantrums that make me want to pull my hair out. She puts on this nasty, mean mug and cries aggressively. She makes all these strange sounds and grunts while she cries. This student even goes as far as throwing herself on the ground, kicking other students, and kicking classroom objects. She knows what she does is wrong and does it anyway. Our resolution for this problem thus far is removing her from the classroom, making her walk the perimeter of the playground during recess, and we even had to give her a referral and send her to the office.
My question to ya'll is how would you handle these obscene behaviors? Anybody have any similar experiences?
The worst lesson I ever experienced in my teaching career had a student who was similar to your Brian. My student cries almost every day, often several times a day, about everything. During one of my subtraction lessons, he complained about his partner throughout the activity, following me around almost in tears even after I talked to his partner about her behavior. Then, when I was trying to re-mediate their misunderstandings in a small-group setting, he kept sobbing "I don't understand. I don't understand. Why aren't you helping me?" That broke my heart because I was trying to help him! He was sobbing because of me! And yet I knew that it was more than just me. Regardless of what I knew, my heart hurt and I didn't know what to do. I tried to work with him, but whenever I had to help another student, this one broke down again. I would tell him to set out five counters while I spoke to someone else. As soon as I opened my mouth to talk to another student, he would sob: "You left me behind!!!" The lesson ended with me rushing the kids off to lunch feeling like I was about to cry. I have been having a really hard time with the waterworks in kindergarten...I know I need to give them tough love so that they learn not to have these breakdowns but it kills me! I would love to hear if anyone else has found successful ways to deal with this type of behavior?
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