too smart for their own good

i just came across this photo the other day from an old neighbor friend. and along with it came so many childhood memories flooding through my mind. this is the neighborhood that i grew up in. i am standing here on the far right with my sister and the two neighbor friends that we played with most of our childhood. i think that i am about six and my sister would be four. as i sit here and look at myself so many years ago, i can still remember so vividly some of the thoughts and feelings that i experienced at this age and even younger and how those memories of my childhood formed who i am today. sometimes, i think we do not realize how much of life that children are aware of. truly, they are probably too smart for their own good. we think, "oh they are just kids, they do not really understand what is going on." but, let me tell you they understand so much more than we think that they do. i can remember how i thought at age six and when i think about it now, i realize we do not give kids enough credit for how intelligent that they are concerning awareness of the people in their life. i could see through people's masks even then. i knew who was for real. i knew who lived in lies. and, i knew it when someone just needed to be accepted and befriended. all that i am today is the result of the learning experiences of friendships and life that i had as a kid. i need to remember that the same is true for my own children. they are so much smarter and more aware that i have realized. definitely, too smart for their own good.