The following is a selection from the book Raising Children Who Think For Themselves by Dr. Eisa Medhus. From the chapter titled "Specific Child Rearing Challenges - How to Handle Them to Encourage Self-Direction", the following introduction is offered.

"The best way to make children good is to make them happy." - Oscar Wilde

Here are some inner-directed suggestions that will help with some of the most trying child-rearing difficulties we may stumble upon. All of these approaches are designed to preserve your children's ability to rely on internal dialogue instead of external influences to assess and correct their behavior. Using this section as a ready reference will help you raise a self-directed child, even if it means carrying the book, tattered and tear-stained, to the market, in the car, or at home. There are some challenges that, I hope you will never have to face, but others will be as inevitable as a pimple on prom night.

To get to self-direction, there are a few universal caveats for every one of the situations that follow. First, our children need to understand and agree with both the need for the furl and the consequence for breaking it. Only when they come to agree with our rules, through their own internal dialogue, will they become self-directed. Second, look to your own parenting strategy as the possible source of some of the problem. Are you over-controlling or over-protective? Either trait can elicit an externally directed response, as your children react to an unhealthy situation. Third, remember for all these parenting challenges how important it is for you as parents, to model the right behavior. If you're expecting your children to act one way and you act another, the double standard will throw a monkey wrench into their whole internal dialogue machinery.

And lastly, don't forget to laugh.

Why they do it

Children cry inappropriately, because they want to get their way, they're tired or sick, they're overwhelmed, they want our attention, they want revenge, they feel helpless, or they don't know a better alternative. Children also have different personalities. Some are just more sensitive than others are.

Logical consequences

If your children cry without good reason, just tell them, "That is not a good reason to cry. If you insist on doing it, leave my space, and go cry where you won't be bothering anyone."

Solutions toward self-direction

Sometimes it helps to acknowledge their feelings: "You seem so angry. It's so hard when your friends are mean. But I know you're clever enough to figure out a way to make everything okay."

Teach them ways to handle emotions like frustration without crying. Role-playing can help out here.

Raise your children to be independent by not doing everything for them, by not rescuing them from every difficulty, by allowing them to do increasingly difficult feats over time, and so on.
Never feel sorry for them, show sympathy, or give in to their demands when their crying is a manipulative ploy. Otherwise, they'll cry in an effort to manipulate external stimuli. This is an external directed tactic.

Use impartial descriptions and give information: "You're crying over not getting your way again. It didn't seem to do any good yesterday."

Whether the crying is appropriate or not, you can combine impartial descriptions with a statement that you have faith in them to handle their own problems (and that problem is not going to be more important to you than to them) by saying something like "Hmm. Looks like you have a problem. What have you decided to do about it?"