Thanks for your response nikola. This particular thread is a couple of years old now, but I am going through it again with another one of my children. It's part of a growth spurt, emotional and physical. Leaving them be means to them that I am not seeing them, they are acting out for a reason and finding out that reason is the hard part.
Leaving mine to be, makes them think that I don't care about them, they are acting out because they crave attention so leaving them be is not good.

depending on what your definition of the dark side is, well I go to my version regularly, haha