Tears like Rain

I am sure many of you have already experienced this as a parent. I am not a mother yet but I am begining to become more in that mindset. I describe my personality as calm, kind, sweet, genuine, etc. I think most people would agree that I am not a mean spiritied teacher nor do I take delight in seeing my students get in trouble. However, for some reason I have sent more students home in tears than I ever thought possible. They cry because I got after them. They cry because they lied and got caught. They break down into tears a lot of the time. Sometimes I have to laugh to myself because they are so upset over something so little, in my opinion. I promise, I honestly do not have a quota of kids I want to make cry by the end of the week. However, I have perfected the "I'm disappointed in you" look and am amazed at how well it works. Of coarse I also play it on the kids who love me to death and do not want to ever disappoint me. Then there are the boys who break down into tears when I say, "You know, I think the basketball coach needs to know about this." Unfortuneately the P.E. teacher (aka the basketball coach) gets the bad cop role a lot of the time. And I almost made it this week until Friday afternoon. I teach only 5th grade math in the afternoons and today we had a test. I have the key so I graded this girl's test right away. Now all week she had been able to do all the problems and was really good in math. However on her test she had gotten every one wrong. I asked her what happened and she said she had guessed for all the answers.
"Why did you guess?" I asked.
"Well, I didn't feel like showing my work," she responded. Now, at this point I was almost home free. However I knew that a teachable moment was coming. That time when as a parent, you know you have to teach a lesson and you seeing tears is the indicator that it is getting through. I mustered up my remaining energy and firmly but calmly repeated the situation back to her. After talking about it I began to think of the consequences. I made her explain the situation to her teacher. The "disappointed" looks on both of us were starting the water works. And then her teacher brought up telling her cheerleading coach. That did it. She had been hit. She knew she had messed up. I had gotten her. But here's the important part and I see some teachers skipping over. Her teacher asked her how she felt and why. Then she proceeded to say that this was a mistake but yet could be fixed. It's important that students understand their feelings and that they can make amends. Sometimes the students need to know that the world doesn't end at one mistake. Yes, it is a mistake. Yes, it needs to be corrected. But then you move on and try again. Looking back on my elementary years, I remember being in that same situation and feeling the same way. Of course there is also tears over hurt feelings and getting injured on the playground. In those cases I abosolutely hate hearing them cry. And I try to navigate the waters carefully between being nurturing and getting them to toughen up. So let the tears come. I have three full boxes of Kleenex waiting.