A couple of days after the start of school, Dave Turner was in his office.
"I may need to call some of these kids in to talk with them already," said Dave while going through student files on his computer.
"Come in," he said after a knock on the door.
"Sorry to show up without an appointment, sir," said a boy who entered.
"That's alright, no one has set any up so feel free to just drop in when you need," said Dave.
"I was actually wanting to talk about my grades," said the boy while taking a seat at Dave's desk across from him.
"The year has just started, Mr… sorry, I don't know your name," said Dave.
"Tom Lenards, and I've been having trouble with my grades for a while now," said the boy as Dave checked the records.
"I see that you have had straight Ds in all your classes, barely passing the grade last year thanks to some extra credit assignments you did before transfering into or school," said Dave.
"Right, I have also tried everything to bring my grades up," said Tom.
"Did something happen in your personal life that may have led to this?" asked Dave.
"My mom passed away a month before they began to drop," said Tom as she shifted in his seat while looking down at his hands.
"I think we have found our trigger then," said Dave.
"A lot of times we bottle our feelings up without realizing and it can affect us in strange ways, especially teen boys as they want to be seen as strong and think that emotions are a sign of weakness," he said.
"Um, she used to congratulate me whenever I brought a good grade home," said Tom.
"As I got older I thought it was embarrassing but then…," he said, getting choked up as the tears began to flow.
"It's alright to cry," said Dave while handing him a tissue.