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Toph is only six when she runs away, though she is lost and confused within minutes. She ends up in a cave, scared and alone. Then, they find her, huge lumbering creatures that are cautious at first until they understand who she is, how she is like them. The badgermoles begin to teach her everything they know, taking her in as their own. She returns home just days later, but isn't away for long. She only stays locked away in the mansion long enough to keep her parents unknowing.
Toph is eight when she tells her parents, playing her innocent blind girl card to try and win over their favor. Her motions are straight and precise, showing off years of careful practice with the badgermoles. It scares them, and they forbid her from leaving her rooms for days. She hates them for it, but acts as if she has forgotten any notion of going further with her skills. Letting them in would only send them further against her. She can't have this taken away from her. So she acts normal, but continues to practice with the badgermoles whenever she can escape through the secret tunnel in her room. Her dislike for her parents starts to grow, the tiny flame wavering in and out.
At nine, her parents see the error in their ways and hire a tutor for her. At least, it seems as if they do. Truthfully, they hire him to keep tabs on her, and force him to teach her only the simplest of forms, even though she masters them seconds after they are taught. He frustrates her to no end. He knows so much, but refuses to teach her any of it. At first, her hatred for them dies out completely, but, when she realizes what they are actually trying to do, it comes back, stronger than before.
When she is ten, she stops trying in Master Yu's lessons, hiding her true skill from everyone. She acts the same as before, but internally darkens, hating her parents and her life even more violently than before. She starts searching for somewhere else to bend, hoping there is somewhere that can accept her for her skills and the blindness that actually helps her.
Toph finds Earth Rumble just days before she turns eleven, and everything seems to open up before her. No one cares that she looks weak, and everyone offers a different kind of challenge. She rises quickly through the ranks, yet still finds new techniques that make her faster and stronger. She stops interacting voluntarily with her parents at all, instead leaving them to themselves. At diner, one of the only meals they all attend, neither of them mention her distance, and she begins to realize that they only noticed her when she begged for their attentions. Then she decides that the badgermoles were more her parents than they ever were.
At twelve, the Avatar gives her a way to escape and she takes it without question. Aang shows her that she doesn't have to be stuck with them, and she thinks she may never return.
Toph is certain that she is finally free.