Misbehavior Is Growth: An Observant Parent’s Guide to Three Year Olds

What is going on with three year olds is so much more than meets the eye.

This book series, Misbehavior is Growth, documents the age-related stages that children go through. These are times when children fall apart, becoming demanding, clingy, whiny, or aggressive. But on other side of this “stage” is an astonishing new skill set. Their brain was going through an “upgrade.” This book offers the popular summaries, as for three year olds, as seen at The Observant Mom. In addition, it offers, for each milestone, detailed analysis, conflict resolution ideas, and ways to nurture the growth.

So much grows mentally in children aged three. Their ability to get around new places. Their ability to categorize, use, and compare large amounts of data. What is most important, though, as argued, is core personality integration. Three year olds develop a conscious idea of who they are as a person, making this one of the most sensitive times of their entire development. And in all this, their wild imaginations, the famous monsters they see in their closet, may play a bigger role than we truly know.

This research overwhelmingly proves what so many have tried to say: children are more like flowers that unfold than clay to mold. There is a biologically determined apparatus that does the lion’s share of mental growth. We couldn’t stop it if we tried!

The idea behind Misbehavior is Growth is that these age-related behaviors are an instinctual call from children to adults so that adults come to them at developmentally critical times. Thus, don’t “ignore” the stages. Lean into them as the investment opportunity they are! It’s not misbehavior: it’s growth!