What is it about first grade, anyway?

I was the most popular kid in my kindergarten class. In first grade, I was quite possibly the least popular.

Why? Well, the things I got away with in kindergarten were shunned, stunted and mocked: Crying, being taller than everybody, being cute.

The biggest hurdle to jump was the transition from a half-day of building blocks and playing "thumbs up" to a six-hour marathon of filling out math problems on "ditto" sheets and reading and analyzing Clifford.

As a father of three young'ns, I now can see how that's the biggest hill to climb. Now that a new school year is starting, it's no wonder that I'm seeing a lot of kids hanging outside the doorways to their school, crying and clinging to their parents. "I don't want to go," the say. "I want to go with you."

My father, an elementary school principal for nearly 30 years, says first grade was not only the hardest to teach, but also the hardest to find the right teacher to teach. The emotional issues run the gamut from hyperactivity to depression.

It's quite possibly that defines the profile of a child - a perception that seems to stick with a boy or girl throughout their time in school. Children seem to also know that it's a make-or-break year, and that first impressions matter: If they don't make friends now, they won't later.

Lately, I've been watching and rewatching clips from the movie "Almost Famous," and I'm reminded of what it's like to not quite fit in. I was a child who was ahead of the curve - the teachers used to move me to the side of the class, place a pile of books in front of me and forget about me for the rest of the class (I was the only one who knew how to read).

The movie reminds me how parents play a big role in shaping the perceptions kids have of each other. While it's good to have parents push their kids and compel them to excel, it's bad to eliminate the potential social consequences from the equation.