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A Texas mother couldn’t understand why her 5-year-old son wasn’t entering the school building – but when she found out, she took a picture that is now going viral.

When Heather Nelson dropped her son Royce off late to school last week in Santa Fe, she was surprised when he stopped in his tracks and bowed his head.

Nelson says she found out what he was doing when Santa Fe police Officer Cibby Moore, who was standing outside the building, told her “Mom, he’s doing good, he stopped for the Pledge of Allegiance,” putting a hand over her heart to demonstrate.

Nelson posted the photo and story on Facebook.

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“Since they do not have prayer in schools he says a little prayer silently and that’s exactly what he was doing,” Nelson wrote. “I was so proud that he stopped when the Pledge of Allegiance came and stood his ground and did not move as the other kids were going in.”

Nelson admits she was a little surprised that her son stopped like he did as the other kids rushed past him.

“When I picked him up, I asked him what made him do it,” Nelson said. In a matter-of-fact, “Duh, mom” voice, Royce told her, “That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

She says she checked later with the officer to make sure she didn’t suggest it to him, “but it was all him and I am so proud of him.”

Nelson also expressed appreciation to Moore for letting her son take those few extra moments before school.

“That’s the way they do that in the morning, they shuffle those kids in. But that is their job and it is for a reason indeed,” she told CNN affiliate KTRK. “But I’m glad she saw what he was doing and she let him do his thing.”

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