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" There&amp;#039;s a harrowing scene in Toy Story 3 where our intrepid heroes are savaged by kids who use Buzz Lightyear as a hammer, Slinky Dog as a slingshot, and Jessie as a paintbrush. As a parent of 2-year-old twin boys, the unbridled toddler-on-toy brutality was so eerily familiar to me that I almost paused the DVD, ran into our playroom, and apologized to every single thing they own.  My sons are, shall we say, enthusiastic. Book pages make perfect dental floss. Crayons are missiles. Whisks are spoons and spoons are drumsticks. Dylan often moseys cheerfully through the house with a torn soccer ball hanging from his mouth. Liam delights in putting trucks in his kitchen set&amp;#039;s fake microwave and using Noah&amp;#039;s Ark as a hat \u2014 because actual hats make much better shoes, according to him. And don&amp;#039;t put Elmo in the toy chest; he obviously belongs in the diaper pail (which, itself, apparently belongs in the living room, where he drags it, determinedly, day after day). At first I gave in to that overwhelming temptation to teach my boys the right way to play \u2014 to stop and say, &amp;quot;Hold up, see, you cook toast, not Tigger.&amp;quot; Invariably, their response was either to wave a finger in my face and say, &amp;quot;No, no, no&amp;quot; (that they do by the book) or to gaze at each other as if to say, &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s the crazy lady&amp;#039;s problem?&amp;quot; I was frustrated, until I started thinking back to my own childhood. My dad never served leftovers; instead, he&amp;#039;d mix them with other random stuff and make a totally new concoction that he&amp;#039;d christen with a crazy name, like LayRaiCheggMuff, which involved English muffins, raisins, and potato chips. When my middle sister and I redid the same puzzles each weekend, she spun a new wild yarn about whatever the picture was \u2014 a cottage became a &amp;quot;den of lies,&amp;quot; and the Peanuts kids carried umbrellas to dodge flesh-melting acid rain. My oldest sister staged elaborate plays with my stuffed animals in sinister roles \u2014 most infamously, Garfield the Grave Robber.  By nature, I was a Suzy Rule-Follower, scared to be different, but my family colored outside the lines, and my world was brighter for it. If I watch my kids through that lens, I see creativity in the mayhem. When Liam takes the Noah&amp;#039;s Ark animals out of the play oven and blows on their heads before chewing on them, he&amp;#039;s clearly pretending to make dinner. And when Dylan hurled a handful of train tracks through his basketball hoop and shot me a heart-meltingly proud smile, it really hit me: He&amp;#039;s not wrong. He&amp;#039;s just imagining, and learning, and \u2014 unexpected side bonus \u2014 teaching me to relax and find fresh magic in the everyday. We could all use a little unchecked creativity in our lives. Or at least that&amp;#039;s what I&amp;#039;ll tell myself the next time Liam tries to play the xylophone with his head. Hey, you never know what they&amp;#039;ll give Nobel Prizes for in 2050. Heather Cocks cofounded and cowrites the fashion blog Go Fug Yourself. Her young-adult novel, Spoiled, which she wrote with Jessica Morgan, was published last month. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/mom-kids/advice/a12070/kids-discipline/>