Crying

Middle school kids seem to cry a lot. Some days it seems like everywhere I turn, someone is crying. Even my mentor teacher has noted that he has never had a group of kids that cry so much. They cry about a lot of things: boys, grades, getting picked on, and other things that they won't tell us about.

Yesterday, during lunch, one of the girls wanted to sit at the spillover table even though the table she should have been at had empty seats. She came and sat next to me and I told her that she must sit at the correct table. She said she didn't want to sit by the people who were near the empty seat, but I told her she had to. I couldn't let her do something I wasn't letting others do. But, then she started crying. She wouldn't tell me why. I just let her stay next to me.

Another girl cried yesterday morning when she found out her test grade (53%). She stood with her face against the wall and cried. I advised her to take deep breaths to try to calm down, but otherwise left her to it since class had not started.

I feel like I'm starting to get callous about it, but everyone just cries. I think half of them just want attention, or to get out of something. Also, they usually only cry for about 30 seconds.