Repeating questions OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER and OV

[mightymoo]

My 3 yo DD is driving me crazy. Any question she asks, she asks at least 5 times. I can understand kids who keep asking because they don't get a response, she keeps asking even though I'm responding. If I respond with more detail, she'll just add that detail to her question.

Are we going to the store? Yes (repeat 5 times)
Are we going to the store? Yes, in a few minutes
Are we going to the store in a few minutes? (Mommy starts to tear her hair out)

I know its just a phase, it will pass, but its seriously driving me insane. Any ideas on how to get her to limit herself to asking the question just one or two times? I try to add more detail, like instead of saying 'Yes' I say 'Yes, we are going to the store', etc but it doesn't help. Arg. Maybe if I knew I wasn't the only mom being slowly driven insane...

[Pandora114]

Originally Posted by mightymoo

My 3 yo DD is driving me crazy. Any question she asks, she asks at least 5 times. I can understand kids who keep asking because they don't get a response, she keeps asking even though I'm responding. If I respond with more detail, she'll just add that detail to her question.

Are we going to the store? Yes (repeat 5 times)
Are we going to the store? Yes, in a few minutes
Are we going to the store in a few minutes? (Mommy starts to tear her hair out)

I know its just a phase, it will pass, but its seriously driving me insane. Any ideas on how to get her to limit herself to asking the question just one or two times? I try to add more detail, like instead of saying 'Yes' I say 'Yes, we are going to the store', etc but it doesn't help. Arg. Maybe if I knew I wasn't the only mom being slowly driven insane...

Nope. My DD does the same thing..

:

I dont know how to stop it either...so I'm subbing to find out

[ibex67]

My dd is doing something similar where she has to copy everything her older brother asks. He will ask a question and she is right there to hear the answer and then she will ask the exact same question. I turn it around on them usually and start asking them questions.

"Did you hear what I told brother?"
"yes"
"So what's the answer?"
And she will tell me.

Then it's more of a conversation then just a repetition.

when the same child asks the same question repeatedly, I do a similar thing. I will ask them the question. "I don't know, when do you think we will go to the store?"

Or I will start giving really ridiculous silly answers once I have answered the question for real once or twice and I know they know the answer.

"When will be there?" [in the car]
"In twenty minutes"
"How long is twenty minutes?"
"It's not very long. About the same time as a BLue's Clues"
"When we will be there?"
"I said, about 20 mins."
"When we will be there?"
"In 6 years. You will have your 5th and 6th and 7th and 8th and 9th and 10th b-day in the car before we get there."
"No...... really?"

Etc....

I try to get goofy with them, turn it into a conversation, and distract them.

When that doesn't work, I finally say "I've already answered that question. I am not answering that question anymore now."

[Lisa Lubner]

Give her a super complicated answer. When she asks...

"Are we going to the store?"

Say something like...

*take a big breath* "YEEEEEES we're going to the store and were going to drive there and you and your brother are going to be in your car seats and i'm going to be driving and we have to go through 4 stop lights and when we get there were going to park and then get our shopping cart and get our groceries............."

Say it as enthusiatically as you can. My kids sortof just get this stunned look on their face.

[annekevdbroek]

My 3 y/o does the same thing and it can be crazy-making. I do as a PP mentioned and start giving silly answers by the 3rd or 4th repitition -
e.g. no, we are going to the moon! At least it makes it easier for me and eaiser to take rather than just repeating the same stuff over and over. He gets the answer the first time and the silly responses seem to help us change to a different track.

[sehbub]

I get goofy too, and I also use the: "I know you remember the answer...you tell me" tactic with my 4yo (and 6yo occassionally when she doesn't feel like accessing those memory banks ). It does make it easier, on my end, to deal with the constant questions.

"Are we going to be at the store soon" (asked for the 12th time)
"Nope. We're not going to get there until you're 35 years old, so you better get comfy."
In unison from the backseat: "MAMA! You're the silliest mama ever."
"Yep, now listen to the music and let me drive, please."

[frogguruami]

My son used to do this. I solved it (mostly at least) by having him repeat the answer.

K - "Are we going to the store, mommy?"
Me - "Yes we are. K, where are we going?"
K - "To the store"

[Maple Leaf Mama]

My DD will be 3 at the end of Aug.
She has been doing this for almost a year.
I'm already crazy from it!

That's the thing-why do they keep asking the question you JUST answered?
To make sure the answer is the same??

My way of stopping it is to ask her a question back.

eg:
wHAT COLOR IS THE SKY.
tHE SKY IS BLUE.
oops
What color is the sky?
What color do YOU think it is??
It's blue.
That's right? So why did you ask me??
It stops the question at hand right there, becausse she knows that she knows the answer.

Until 2o seconds later when it's another question. *sigh*

[majikfaerie]

I always ask the questions back at dd, and most of the time, she has the answer. if she doesnt, then I'll tell her and straight up ask her another question:
dd- where are we going?
me- oh you want to know where we are going? tell me where we are going?
dd- to the store.
me- that's right, we're going to the store. What are we gonna do there?
dd- buy stuff
me-what would you like to buy?
dd- apples

etc.
I never get sucked in to endless questions, just straight up, ask them what they think. I guess that the endless repetition is just a way to get a conversation going. so I try getting a more interesting (less frustrating) conversation going and so far it worked like a charm.

[eco_mama]

My dd will ask the same question about 50 times and it literally drives me insane. For instance, "Can I have some cucumbers?" "Yes, hand on a sec." "Can I have some cucumbers?" ""Yes Marley, just wait a sec." "Can I have some cucumbers mama, plllleeeeease?!" "Marley! I said yes!" :

Another thing she does is repeats the same thing over and over. Like say when we take her pee. She uses our toilet and since we haven't got a stool yet we lift her up on it, wipe her, lift her down. Anyways, when she's done going to the bathroom she'll say, "I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done..." Before I can even say, "Ok, be there in a sec." :

I've been trying to explain to her that I HAVE HEARD HER and she doesn't need to repeat herself. She still does it though.

Silly girl.

[Terabith]

My dd does this too! (And now the 15 month old has started asking "Where ___?" over and over and over and over too. Sigh.) I finally decided that she was 1) practicing the language form of the question and 2) didn't have a lot of small talk in her repetoire. It's not like they can converse about movies, books, politics, etc. (Well, okay, I guess they can, but it tends to involve ad nauseum recitation....not exactly give and take conversation.) That helped me be more patient, but it still drives me crazy. I can even get her to repeat the answer and have her still ask it again, less than five seconds later. As in, no pause. "Where are we going, Mommy?" (Mind you, we NEVER leave the house without in depth discussion of destination.) "We're going to the store, Anna. Where are we going?" "To the store. Mommy, where are we going?" Argggg! Sometimes she'll get tricky and rename me the second time. I'll become "Mommy Cat, Mommy Penguin, Mommy Dragon, Mommy Bear, Mommy Fish, etc."

[dillonandmarasmom]

Okay okay, how about this for making a person nuts...

DS: Mommy do you see that smoke over there?
Me: Yes, Dillon.
DS: No, mom, you have to say what I said.
Me: What?
DS: Do you see that smoke over there??
Me: Yes. I see that smoke over there!

He does this with everything! It' slike he wants to check his grammar or something!:

Yeah, he repeats like crazy, too...something about being 3 and having to ask everything 16 times??

[arlecchina]

my son did (at at age 12, frequently still DOES) this.

after a few repetitions, I start saying "well, what do you think?"

that started stopping him from more repetition after age 4 or so.

[Liliana]

My 3 year old does this too and it doesn't seem to matter what we anwer and sometimes doesn't matter if we answer. I get her asking the same question over and over without pause, louder and louder and I have to yell and interupt her just to answer.

When she's pausing for an answer she still doesn't hear the answer, so it doesn't much matter what we say. It's like her brain is stuck in "output" mode and doesn't recognize that I'm saying things that might be related.

[frontierpsych]

*sigh* my friend's ds does this to me (but not her, for some unknown reason).

[Summerland]

My son does it too!! slowly driving me insane, lol

[Cutie Patootie]

My 3 yo sort of does the same thing, except much more complicated...

Where are we going mama?
to the store baby...
why store mama?
we need some milk and eggs...
why milk and eggs mama?
mama needs them to make the cake...
why cake mama?
the cake for so and so's birthday...
why birthday?

Oh my goodness and I am not kidding. He does this about everything...there is never an ending answer. I have started to say, "why do you think?" but then he starts all over with something else a couple of minutes later. :

[**guest**]

Originally Posted by Cutie Patootie

My 3 yo sort of does the same thing, except much more complicated...

Where are we going mama?
to the store baby...
why store mama?
we need some milk and eggs...
why milk and eggs mama?
mama needs them to make the cake...
why cake mama?
the cake for so and so's birthday...
why birthday?

Oh my goodness and I am not kidding. He does this about everything...there is never an ending answer. I have started to say, "why do you think?" but then he starts all over with something else a couple of minutes later. :

dd, 4, does this a lot. : it can drive me bonkers. especially when we are doing something that SHE wants. ... we are going to make cookies. WHY? because you asked to bake them, (like 1 min ago!). WHY?

[mightymoo]

She will also do something like that too, we'll talk and I'll say 'We're going to the beach in two weeks, that's 14 days'. and she'll say 'Is it two weeks?' over and over. Sometimes it hard to deal with because her question doesn't make sense to begin with! She does this with a lot of time, even though she understands things like minutes. If I say we're doing something in 10 minutes, she'll immediatley ask 'is it ten minutes?'. Bah

[julie128]

Okay! Not just my kid. Whew! I was starting to think she had a short-term memory problem. I guess it's normal. I'm glad she's curious, and want her to stay curious, but it drives me nuts!