What+do+you+do+when....

There is a student in 3rd grade who cries almost everyday. I noticed after my second observed lesson (by the UFS) that he was crying, and my MT explained to me that I hadn't called on him when I was asking students for the answer to a problem. "But don't worry about it, he does this everyday..." says my MT. Another time his group had a funeral for the word "good," and they were to decorate their tombstone. When my MT chose one girl in the group to write the word "good" at the top of the tombstone, the boy started to almost cry again. When I asked him what's wrong, he answered, "I'm not doing anything. I'm useless... what's the point of my sitting here if I'm not going to do anything?!" One day this week he came in crying from PE with his best friend at his side. He explained to my MT that his team had lost 4 times in football during PE. "//FOUR// TIMES!! It wasn't just once... //FOUR// times, in a ROW!!" His friend added, " says he's going to a private school because he hates losing so much." My MT was stumped for a second before she could answer with a serious face. What do you do when you have a crybaby who makes improbable claims? (I guess this is just a rhetorical question or food for thought. I think my MT handled it well; she didn't take his claim too seriously, but she made sure he expressed what he felt and would somehow cool off emotionally by suggesting that he go for a walk with his friend).

We have a similar issue. We have a girl who has periodic breakdowns. I was leading a phonics group with 5 students and we were doing sentence construction. Without warning, this girl put her head down on the desk and wouldn't respond when I spoke to her. Not sure what to do and other students staring, I continued the activity hoping she would come out of it. When she did, she had tears streaming down her face and said, "Nobody cares about me." I told her that wasn't true and asked for her help with sentence construction, then she said "My sister doesn't care about me" and began to sob. I had no idea what to do. There were an awkward couple of minutes then it ended, just as quickly as it had started. What do you do when a child does that while you are leading a small group activity?

I have had a similar issue as well. I have on student that gets really emotional and angry when things don't go his way. When he gets frustrated he will either yell loudly or lay his head down and cry. My mt has been working closely with him a lot this year to help him learn how to control his emotions and outbursts. Letting him know that it is ok to be upset, but it is not ok to scream or throw a tantrum. It has definitely been a challenge during my few lessons. In one lesson I partnered him with a student different than the one he wanted originally and he refused to work with the student I put him with. I struggled with whether or not it was best for me to give in and let him work with who he wanted if it meant he was working, or for me to stick my ground. - MB

We have a student who has a very different problem - he's unresponsive. He's a fifth grader, and at the beginning of the year would almost never participate in anything. My MT often had to coax him to get his books out, to take notes; he would hardly ever cooperate for me. Fortunately, we've been working from the beginning of the year to get him to participate, and he has been doing better. Although I had to do some persuading today to get him inside the classroom for math, when I was working with him in a small group on algebraic expressions he became very animated when he understood what was going on with the math before anyone else in his group understood. So today was a good day for him, but we just take it a day at a time, and there are times where he just will not do anything but sit there. On those days I'm never sure how much to urge him, and how much space to give him.