I have a 3 year old who I've had in care since she was 16 months old. She has always been very emotional. She cries many days saying she misses mom and dad, some days longer than others. She also gets upset quite easily over things that most kids don't get upset about.
Today she started crying during our circle time while we were singing. She continued and got louder as we tried to continue. I asked her why she was crying, but when she starts crying, she usually will not answer any questions. I finally removed her from the group (in a location where I could still see her) so we could continue without her distraction in the group. She cried even louder when she realized we were continuing without her. I told her when she was finished crying, she could rejoin the group. She continued for 1 1/2 hours! Throughout this time, I tried asking questions and telling her I couldn't help her if she wouldn't tell me what the problem was. I texted mom telling her the problem. Mom asked if she could call and try and talk to her. I agreed to this so mom called. DCG just continued crying for the first 5 minutes. Then she calmed down and nodded her head yes and no, so I told mom I would put her on speaker phone because DCG was only responding to her with head movements. Mom asked her if she was upset with her friends. DCG nodded yes. Then mom asked if she was upset with a particular child (mom named the child) and DCG nodded yes. At that point, I told mom that the child DCG said she was upset with had done and said nothing to her to make her upset. Mom told me that at home DCG tells her that she gets upset with the other child when they choose a song to sing that she wanted to choose. (Some days I let each older child choose a song they want to sing during circle time) So DCG spent 1 1/2 hours crying because she was upset that another child chose a song to sing that she wanted to choose? That seems very excessive and is concerning to me that she will carry on that long about something so small. Most days she doesn't continue for that amount of time, but most days she has multiple small crying fits that last 10-15 minutes and there is nothing I can say to pull her out of it.

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