Smile!

Earlier today, when we took Bella to her swim lesson, Sofia and I were sitting on a bench by the pool. She was looking at something on my phone when a little girl walked by us and I saw her smiling at Sofia. I turned around to look at Sofia, expecting for her to return the smile, but instead she just started at the girl, as if she was annoying her, and went back to looking at the phone.

"Yikes! My kid did not just do that", I thought. "Why didn't you smile back?" I asked, but she just game a shrug. As the friendly adult that I am, I didn't want to just let it go. Sometimes people do this at work, and it drives me nuts.

I explained to her that when somebody smiles at you, especially somebody your age, you should smile back. I asked her if she thought that just staring at another kid would be a good way to make new friends, and she agreed the answer to that was a big fat NO.

I know you won't always be best friends with everybody around you, but given how sensitive Sofia is, and how prone she is to be offended by so many things, I think it is key for her to understand the importance and the power of just being nice. Sometimes you are nice and people are still jerks. That is true. But I am a firm believer that if you go around projecting a bad vibe to the word, a bad vibe is certain to come back to you every single time. And who wants that?!?