My lo is now 3 years and 3 months old. She's hit most of the milestones I see listed for 4.5+ years, and when I read the "kindergarten readiness" lists, she hits all that stuff, too.

It just occurred to me that she doesn't ask "why" all that often. I mean, she certainly asks it, but it seems like she just knows things. She asks me what things are or what certain words mean, but her vocabulary is pretty large.

My friends are complaining about toddlers / preschoolers who ask "why" non-stop, and I realized that's yet another milestone I'm not experiencing. She asks "why", just not incessantly...that kind of bothers me, because kids are supposed to ask why constantly. We didn't have the "terrible twos", either. She's just now started throwing the occasional tantrum, but can often be reasoned with. (But when she really loses it, it can suck. Like for the first time ever while at Starbuck's the other day. )

Were your kids all about asking "why"? What were they like at this age? She probably watches way too much TV, and she memorizes a lot of stuff from there. She's doing some basic math and started sounding out words at 2.5, but I haven't been pushing it. She just started being able to write letters without frustration, so I'm trying to get my act together and do some lessons from that 100 Reading Lessons book.

Haven't been here in a while. *waves*

I had that experience, too. I epected whys; I had great answers to some classics: it never happened. DS8 also watched a good amount of TV at that age, and was pretty headstrong. He'd do a lot of strange things and seek out a lot of factual information.

At some point it became apparent that he was almost hard-wired for the scientific method, and his core m.o. is to test and experiment and discover answers. He has a strong need to figure things out himself even to his own detriment. It's like life is a novel and any bestowed wisdom is skipping pages.

I don't know if it's because he got a lot of questions answered to his questions. Or a lot of praise for making connections himself. Or something innate. But I know now that he constantly asks "Why?" It's just to himself and it drives him. Though frustrating at times, I see it as the very trait of intellectual curiosity that I wished for him to have even before he was born.

Both mu boys, now 6 and 4, has never really asked questions like that either. My older would just figure things out on his own and not really discuss it. My younger would also figure things out and then give me and explanation why, in his mind, things work the way they do.

It is not until the past week or so DS4 started asking a million questions. I am not sure what happened but as an example; the other day he was "stuck" on a pair of soccer shoes (He had never seen a pair before) asking probably 20 questions about the shoes??? Everything from why are the seams this way, asking it the logo sign was "a mirror, because it kind of reflects"....

Very interesting but....sigh...

My DYS dd 11 asked why ALL THE TIME! Charming as it was, I remember it drove me bonkers. She still does it, as in she and I are watching Downton Abbey together, and she can't help herself, but has to ask out loud, "Why is Rose kissing him?!" My husband jokes that her nickname is "why?" And ds 9's nickname is "but...!" We are thinking of getting t-shirts made that say "But why?"

yeah we had a pediatrician give us a health index when our dd was 3, and one of the questions was, does your child point at things in books? and of course it was no, or 'not much' anyway. This is a red flag for poor development, but the pediatrician, knowing my daughter said, "so that is because she is just able to ask in full sentences 'what is that', right?" Doesn't need to point.
And yeah, that was why. So it is odd, but the pointing phase might have occurred for a bit much earlier and we just didn't notice.

Around 2 or so she was asking 'wha's dat?' over and over, it was amazing how often that would come out of her little mouth. Just building the huge vocab I guess.

It might still come. We never had questions until fairly recently with DS4. But now we get lots of questions, such as "what is inside of stars", "why is water liquid" etc. . We tended to give age-inappropriate answers, often wondering if it was too much info; now that we know his test results, we think it's probably just right.
DS2, on the other hand, is asking questions now - probably imitating his brother. But he already asked questions like "what's that" in books much earlier, as a 1 year old.

I don't remember with DD, but she started with the why questions at around 3-4 I think.
I was worried about DS because at 4-5, he still hardly ever asked why, and when he did it was usually me saying something like "We can't go outside right now." and he would say "Why not?" It wasn't questions like "Why does the earth orbit the sun?" or "Why do police cars use sirens?" At age 6-7 we started getting more "Why" and "How" questions but he seems content to read books and ponder things on his own rather than talking/asking about things.

I read once that this stage is a consequence of a child wanting to keep the conversation going without the verbal skills really to do so. A kid with conversational skills that come on line before this stage can keep conversations going in other ways.

You might be interested in this thread:

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/180637/1.html

I don't hear "why" often so much as, "How did you know that?" from my DS2.25, and he expects lengthy explanations of how I arrived at a given conclusion. I'd call it reverse-engineering the scientific process. Like 1111's younger son, my DS also will ruminate and then bombard me with a detailed hypothesis about why something is the way it is, and then we discuss it in detail. Maybe your DD has developed her own more efficient hacks for getting at the information she craves.

DD has never been all that fond of "why" either. She was highly verbal quite young, though-- and had a million tricks to keep people interacting with her.

She apparently figured out quite early on that adults in particular were more likely to respond naturally (and more informatively) to more subtle forms of interaction.

She was a great observer-- not always an INQUISITOR. She always seemed to know that the latter was off-putting, whether people "expected" it or not. LOL.

My DD is about 4 months older than yours and her why why why why why why why stage started just about a week ago. She does it on purpose to irritate me.

Prior to that, she asked why all time time but she used it sarcastically then I realized she was mocking me since I tend to do that.

I don't know if that why stage is a language developmental milestone. It could simply that it's not in her personality to be asking why all the time. If that is the case, then lucky you.

My youngest has the most questions, and she still asks a lot of questions...annoying at times. I don't know that any of my three really ever just asked "Why?", but rather questions.

Maybe around six years old, the questions were at their height, with things like, "Can babies contract communicable diseases prior to birth?". I typically just tell the kid to Google it, but that probably doesn't work so well at age three.

And then just weird observations...such as middle kid, at 6:30am, on the way to a sports tournament - "Did you realize that if you spell out numbers from 1 to 999, there isn't an 'a' in any of them?" Not really what I was thinking about at that hour, more like "Where is my coffee?"

I wouldn't worry if your three year old doesn't ask "Why?" much - I know my eldest didn't and she is doing just fine in college.

Mine (6 and 4) don't do why much either. Ds6 will sometimes share his theories with me which are fun but sometimes he was obviously missing a critical piece of information. When I give him the missing piece he comes up with a new theory. Really they have never needed to ask pointless questions to keep the conversation going.

my Ds did not ask why ... my DD does... kids are different... I find it annoying when I don't know the answer..

My DD never really went through a "why" phase... she just quietly studied and observed and figured things out. My DS was the persistent questioner, and still continues to grill me to this day (he's 9). He's the mouth piece for both of them I think. His questioning has always been obscure and detailed in addition to being persistent, and very sort of sciencey and physics oriented... and often times ones I couldn't answer.

Anyway... yeah, DS is my questioner, but not DD. They're all different I think.

I know. I've Googled A LOT. In fact, I went as far as to create a "questions and answers" binder for notes and printouts.

When DD hammered me with a question barrage, it was, "What's that?" There's nothing like a hardware store for overstimulating a curious 2yo. I couldn't even begin to formulate one answer before she'd moved on to something else.

When she was 3, her questions weren't disproportionately "why" questions; a lot of them were information seeking. "What happens to food when you eat it?" "Tell me some more about jail." "What are these pictures showing?"

"Why" could always be expected to show up when DD was being told to do something she didn't want to (or told not to do something she did want to). "Why do I have to wear pants outside the house?" "Why do I have to hold your hand in the parking lot?" "Why can't I have more candy?"

LOL

"Tell me some more about jail."

Oh, the questions like this... I always cringed a little inside when DD would look contemplative, and then draw a deep breath while we were somewhere public.

A gifted / highly gifted child, when the gifts are early speech / early reading is nothing like an average IQ child. I experienced it myself from my early years. I heard the stories of parents and grandparents, but it hits you the most when you witness it in a very young child, such as your own. You cannot use the information that is written / orally passed down about the average IQ person. It does not apply. You have to go on-line and read about the high IQ people. If I ever am able to catch up on all of the reading available in English I will get translation dictionaries and start decoding writings in other languages. You cannot compare your child to theirs. I still remember a young classmate of mine in first grade asking, why does this student seem to know everything already? Good Luck if the teachers ever even actually hear the question let alone are able to answer it. Just breath and do the math to make you feel better. I remember when Lily Tomlin was 'Looking for signs of intelligent life' in her one person show. Say there are 8 billion people in our world. Apply the percentage you want (1% to 5%), the product is very large number, but you have to find those people. I am starting to understand why the super highly intelligent people flock to ivy league schools; it is probably in the hopes of finding the other super intelligent humans. Side note about Starbucks: Seems to have partnered with a San Francisco pastry shop, yum!

DD is older but yesterday asked me to describe all the ways a person can die, and the exact mechanism involved. For instance, if someone has their head chopped off, their brain can no longer control their heart beating. She seemed a little bit too enthusiastic about the topic and finally I asked if we can please talk about something else. I was glad it was at home, and not in public.

LOL!

I have been dealing with this exact line of questioning from my DD for about a year (maybe more)! Death by viral diseases vs bacterial diseases, parasite, car crash, starvation etc. You name it we have talked about it. I am so glad to know I am not alone. I have had to squash the line of questioning a few times in public to avoid the stares and whispers!

No, my three year old is an emo and a dramatic actress. I don't hear "why?" I hear, "you broke my heart because you didn't trust me to go to the store with dada. I'm very dissapointed." (Well, that's not really why, she's just dramatic). Or I get a nicely executed 3 yr. Old plop to the floor, red faced, tears rolling, fall down and cry pitiously tantrum.

My DS3.5 very rarely asks why as well. It gives me pause because it seems to me that gifted children would as "why?" as a way to quench the thirst for knowledge. So I start questioning his giftedness even though he's a self-taught reader, can skip count by 2, 5, & 10 to at least 200, and does a lot of simple addition/subtraction in his head.

His questions are generally less broad, and seem to be more a means for figuring something out for himself. For example, last summer he became obsessed with digital clocks. For about a week, anytime he saw one he'd ask what time it was. Within a week he could identify any number up too 100. Obviously a clock only goes up to 59, but he understood the base ten naming pattern I guess. So questioning is more about filling in missing links for his broader discoveries. Maybe it's because he's more analytical and a little less social.

A few weeks ago I just decided to ask him, "Why don't you ever ask 'why' questions? Don't you want answers to 'why' questions?" He looked at me, a little puzzled, and after a moment of thought he said, "I tell YOU the answers." Oh boy! Apparently he doesn't ask because he's already come to the conclusion that he knows more than me.

I'm rather unselfconscious, so this conversation isn't one that would give me pause. I've had a number of conversations with DD in public where DW started to get uncomfortable, but I was fine.

The only time I cringed (and that would be putting it mildly) was when DD(5 at the time) and I found ourselves playing with a pair of black girls at the bounce house. That very morning DW had informed me that DD had expressed some unfavorable views about race (DD is very fastidious, and had come to the idea that people with darker skin must not wash themselves properly), so I took the opportunity to talk to her about it on the drive to the bounce house. A good time was had by all, and I was quite pleased with the timing of the thing, as it was an opportunity for positive reinforcement of her earlier lessons.

I was good and worn out by the time the kids' parents decided it was time for them to go, and as we were all putting on shoes and collecting our things, my internal dialog is chanting, "Please don't let DD say anything insensitive, please don't let DD say anything insensitive, please don't.... " The dad approached to shake my hand and thank me for including his daughters in our play, and showing them a good time. No sooner had I responded in kind than DD shouted, "DAD, YOU'RE RIGHT! IT'S JUST SKIN!!"

My old DD (now 8) never really had a "Why?" phase, either. She had many other interests--for example, I remember at that age she was very into cars and when we were driving, she would want me to tell her the make and model of any vehicle that caught her attention, if she couldn't figure it out herself. She loved to hold the GPS map, too, and tell me what streets we were passing, or how fast I was driving at any given second. When she had a question about the world, it was usually something really deep, like, "But how do trees breathe in the winter when their leaves fall off?"

My son, however, would literally ask "Why?" at anything at ALL that caught his attention. Then he'd question the answer with "But WHY?" and question every answer with another "But WHY?" until I wanted to tear my hair out and running screaming into the hills. I'm pretty sure he actually knew the answer to at least half of the questions he ever asked me because if I gave up and asked, "Why do YOU think?" he would usually already know the answer. I dunno if this was mostly just a game or maybe because he's less verbal than his sister and couldn't read yet.

My daughter asked the non-stop trail of 'why' probably from 2 to a little past 2.5. She's a little over three now and her questions are more like 'how do you spell that word?'. She'll ask me word after word, after word, on how you spell it. Or she asks more complex questions than 'why'. I personally wouldn't be concerned because I think every child, especially gifted children, process information and gather input in a different way.

we get how? not why. We had a big convo tonight about where daddy's steak came from and how it came out of the cow.

My almost 3 just start asking a few why this week, but he keep asking who, which and what a lot, even I have answered him, he still keep asking the same thing, I mmguessing may be he want to ask why but don know how to ask? So I now try to lead him to ask why.