We have been dealing with this issue for years with 2 of my kids. I have found SEL to be such a hot button issue in these forums, with other parents and in schools that I will tread lightly here offering only my experience, not advice.
Paid out the ears for a developmental based preschool that came highly recommended etc. etc. Let everything develop at his pace, never pushed, allowed him to "feel", express his emotions etc. It was such an epic fail that it fouled up my son's approach to education and his self concept both in the classroom and related to learning. Once he started school he had zero ability to regulate himself in a classroom, tolerate other's behavior and learn anything he didn't choose.
Fast forward 3 years and I was determined my daughter (who also cried at the drop of a hat) was not going to have the same experience. I enrolled her in a small local pre-school which was overall "fine" academically. She only went for a few hours each day and I was able to do all the academics she needed after school. It did a great job of teaching her "in the moment" how to identify, address and control her emotions in situations with others that she can not control (and also in situations that I could/would not create at home like "mean girls"). I have seen this pay off if a multitude of ways since then...once we went to a mixed aged bday party that I totally missed was a costume party. One little girl came up to her and asked her why she wasn't in costume and she looked her straight in the eye and said "because I didn't want to" and then joined in the games. She has also taken a great deal of control with her own "out of the box education" when things do not go her way--for example one time she wanted to write and was told that it wasn't writing time, it was coloring time. So she laid out all the markers and copied all the names of colors on her paper.
Basically I have seen that the child that was in an environment that helped her become more aware of and thus control her OE, paid off further down the road in her education that the one who was taught to "celebrate" his OE. She is a completely self-propelled rocket, while the other continues to struggle with underachievement. Either way I believe emotional OE is a long-term struggle. Good luck!
