We take all sorts of things kids do and label it “misbehaving.” Talking back, running around, screaming, sneaking around, breaking stuff, cursing, spitting, whining, making messes, not following the rules, hitting their sibling, pulling pranks.

As if this isn’t totally normal behavior for someone their age.

We’ve said this before, but one of the things we need to constantly remind ourselves of as parents is that our kids are just being kids. If we’re being honest, what’s closer to an accurate description of a kid: those behaviors listed above or being a perfectly quiet, perfectly obedient, perfectly well mannered and well behaved? You know that kids do these things, you know that it’s normal, you know that it’s largely harmless, you know that they have very little control over it, that it’s all part of a process of learning and growing and figuring things out.It’s strange then that our instinct as parents isn’t to try to find ways to be patient and understanding, to appreciate and to endure–given that it’s a phase that will eventually end. No, instead our instinct seems to be surprised by this, to yell at them for it, to try to make them not be kids…as if that’s even possible! Someday you will miss it. Someday they will be perfectly behaved, boring adults. Someday it will no longer be possible for them to be kids. So why are you rushing through it, trying to crush it, stamp it out, trying to make them something other than what they are right now?