The first day of school—it’s enough to make you cry, especially if you’re a former fifth-grader moving into middle school.

About ten minutes before class was scheduled to start, a broad, beefy parent walked into my classroom. “Mr. Teacherguy?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“I’m ‘Shelby’s’ father, and she’s a little upset.” He turned away from me slightly and spoke over his shoulder. “It’s all right,” he said soothingly.

That’s when I heard the sniffling.

“Say hi to Mr. Teacherguy,” the dad said.

A tiny sobbing form clad in an ankle-length skirt stepped out into the open and extended her hand, and I took it.

“Hi, Shelby, I’m Mr. Teacherguy. Welcome to my classroom.”

Shelby started wailing, dropped my hand as though it were a hot iron, and darted back behind her dad.

“How long can you stay?” I asked the dad.

“I’m not late for work,” he said.

“Well, you’re welcome to sit behind Shelby or beside her for a while.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll need to.”

The last bell rang and Shelby clung to her dad. He turned around and peeled her loose. “You’ll be all right,” he said.

“Here’s your desk, and these are your books, Shelby,” I said.

Her father escorted her to her desk and said, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Shelby wailed as her dad walked out the door.

I could just about guess how the rest of the day would go. I imagined having to call Shelby’s dad at work to tell him that his daughter was a basket case. The rest of the students filed in, found their name tags, and sat down at their desks. Shelby was still sobbing inconsolably.

To start the school year off with a bang, an assembly had been scheduled for the first hour of the day. I took my students to the gymnasium and situated them with the rest of the sixth-graders. By the time the assembly started, Shelby’s sobs had turned to sniffles. As Shelby participated in one of the relay races, which the sixth-graders lost by only a few inches, her sniffles dried up. By the time the assembly was over, she was almost (but not quite) smiling.

Later in the day, I told this story to “DeMare,” one of my sixth-grade colleagues, who took a philosophical view of Shelby’s wailing and gnashing of teeth. “Sometimes kids just do this sort of thing for the benefit of the parents,” she said.

Seems like a pretty drastic way to convince parents that they’re still important in a child’s life, but all’s well that ends well, and Shelby made it through the rest of the first day of school without a tear or a sniffle. In fact, when the final bell rang and she packed up her things, Shelby smiled at me.