I'mk having trouble managing the "why?" phase. I've always loved this with other kids, and so I maybe encouraged it a bit too much early on. Anyway. When I realized I was getting really really really tooth-shatteringly (ok, almosttoothshatteringly) frustrated, I decided to teach DS to ask questions other than "why," in hopes the questions would become clearer and easier to answer.

Let's just say he learned that one pretty d#^% quick, and it did NOT help.

The upshot is, he's more into ontology than I am. He uses his new and improved question repetoire to inquire yet more deeply once he finally hits the ontological question.

Any advice? Please?

-Mich

He's trying to learn. Answer as much as you can stand, then answer a bit more, then take a break. It is okay to say you need a break from talking or that you need some quiet time.

I'd also suggest getting a break when you can adult conversation by getting together with other families with kids and by getting out of the house sometimes when you can. In my experience feeling really annoyed with stuff like this is a sign you need more time off.

It's a phase? Who knew?

I am a big fan of, I don't know, what do you think? Or why do you ask? Gives me a better idea of what he wants to know. Or where his mind is. Often it's in a very different place than I would have supposed.

Good luck!

DeHe

I notice two distinct types of questioning in Hanni. When she really wants to know, the questions are incisive and insightful, and while there may be followup questions, it does end eventually.

The other type is random, weird, doesn't make a lot of sense, and tends to be repetitive (e.g. repeated why's). Often she doesn't even listen to one answer before asking the next. These questions give me the distinct impression that she's bored, and is trying to think up questions to get attention.

We have a "why song," and when the questioning gets too annoying I start singing it. ("Why oh why oh why oh why? Why oh why oh why?" Etc.) She gets the point, and we both start laughing.

Yes, the Woodie Guthrie song is a good reminder that many a parent has reached the point where they get sick of "Why?"

That just reminded me of when DS was really little and I had reached that I can't answer another why question, he started to ask, why and I cut him off and sang Zee, like we had just done the ABCs. He was so thrown he didn't ask any questions for a few minutes!!

DeHe

Ha! I had no idea it was a Woodie Guthrie song. Thanks!

I love the question "why?", it's my favorite question by far, for two reasons:

1) A well-formed why-query is one of the best tools to unlocking the secrets of the universe.
2) It's a question that can be asked infinitely, so it's one of the best ways of annoying someone for an extended period before they notice you're doing it on purpose.

It's always best when you start out with a couple of very earnest whys, then smoothly transition to doing it for fun. You get to learn something, and then it takes a while for the other person to notice you've switched motives, so this rhetorical strategy is rewarding in both ways.

On the opposite end, when DD is hammering me with whys, if I think she's earnest but I need a break, I just tell her we'll talk about it more later. And if I think she's not, I just bounce the question back to her.

You mean advice other than answering "I don't know"?

I suppose you could try looking at him blankly.

Isn't it a great song? Woodie must have spent some time around preschoolers!

This is one of my best parenting tips ever -

Around age 3 DS started to ask 'why' -
I realized that almost every question could fit into 2 basic answers -

((drumroll))

Nature or Custom

Why can't we have Pizza for breakfast - Custom
Why can't we breath underwater - Nature

So he would ask, I would think, and then say "Nature" or "Custom"

Sometimes that would be all he wanted to know. Other times he would ask more questions about the same topic. I'd come back with -

Well, What do you think is the reason why?

I'd use this to access, what vocabulary does my child know, what concepts has he already figured out for himself that I can 'compare/contrast' with my understanding of the situation.

Then I'd give an answer based on his answer.

We had fun that way.

Sometimes we still joke about 'nature or custom' or try to find a 'why' that doesn't untimately boil down to one of those 2.

We talked about how the nature of humans is usally to defend custom much more fiercely than nature.

Smiles,
Grinity

Yeah, it's definitely when he's bored. And he does the same not-waiting for the answer to be finished thing. But once he hits the REALLY hard questions he kicks into incicive mode & thats when it gets really painfull, becauswe there's a construction worker over there on the other side of the bus listening in while I try to explain why cement is grey from a mechanical, optical, and ontological perspective, and somehow I feel more bound to answering thought-out questions and also more stressed out by it. And someone's ALWAYS listening in! With other kids the endless whys feel like a quest for knowledge in genreal, with DS it always feels like he's trying to get to something specific -- that I really don't seem to be ably to address.

He won't wait for me to finish speaking ever. as soon as he thinks he gets it he cuts me off. arrrrggggghghhhhhhhh!!!!!

Ok, so I wrote that last night, but never hit post. The current set of frustrations is being set off by a really really bad flu. Please excuse any incohearence & blame it on the fever. I don't have this excuse often, so just let me use it, eh?

-Mich

I like the nature/custom thing. In fact, I like it very very much

I will add that to my arsenal. Not so much different from my "it's arbitrary" response ("Why is it called a 'shoe'?" "It's arbitrary, people before us called it something that sounded a bit like 'shoe,' so we call it something that sounds a bit like 'shoe'")


And I've already been using "tradition," too, which isn't quite the same as "custom." Ok, I'm probably not supposed to be thinking about writing an "Opposites" book including "arbitrary/determinate" "nature/custome" "tradition/inovation," and "Predictable/unpredictable," am I?

("Predictable" is my response for things like "why should we wait for the little walking figure?" "Because to make traffic safe, it's best to be predictable, so it's worth following an arbitrary set of rules.")


-Mich

I think you are supposed to - afterall if you don't who will?

I'll put it right next to the equally fictitious 'Nerd Baby's Milestones Book'
...first Spoke quote
...first use of reference material
...first Google search
...first SF convention
...first use of sarcasm
...first thoughts about G-d

Regular baby milestone books just seem really to miss the point to me.

I'd buy both books. But I think the Nerd Baby book also needs a special chapter on "Parenting a Nerd Baby - Rites of Passage," where I could put things like:
*received first blank stare when talking about my child (oops, every ___ month/year old isn't interested in ____?!)
*first time I advocated for my son
*reached one million explanations today
*first time my child sighed and gave up trying to explain something to me



I was explaining stoplights and traffic (and modelling it with a pink motorcycle and a man riding a squirrel) to DS2 in a play area today and looked up to find four other mothers staring at me. I could feel my face turning red, but I had to laugh about it when I read Michaela's post. I'm so glad for this place.

First time child interupts a long winded explaination and says says "Oh, you mean X" where X equals vocabulary you had no clue your child would know.

JohnLaw: Yeah, he gets those a lot. He thinks I'm *pretending* not to know. And he thinks it's rude. And he asks me why I don't know. And what I don't know, and what is don't know, and... yeah.

DS asks the forum if "fun" is nature or custom.

And doesn't everyone ride squirrils?

-Mich (getting squirily)

PS: DH points out that DS's first google search was long ago, and ew have no idea what it was, but probably train-coupling related. And I thought i still had time to buy the book. <sigh>

* First time you described something your child was doing and your mom said, "Yeah, right."

I think that some kinds of fun are definitly nature - learning something new for example (a few more 'R' rated activities come to mind as well)

Belonging to a group is a nature kind of fun, and getting fun from doing the things that are associated with belonging to one's group is a 'custom' sort of fun.

I would venture that behind every kind of custom fun there is a nature fun - in the manner of conditioned responses, see
http://psychology.about.com/od/cindex/g/condresp.htm

Even Schadenfreude is a nature sort of pleasure - I think this because on the rare occasions when I feel it, I'm very mad at myself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude

I suppose in this day and age, "Let's Google It" is also an appropriate response.

Fun is customarily found in nature, but some customs by their nature are fun.

Yup - our house too, that's why I instituted that 'What do you think the answer is?' step.
Very often DS will figure out the info he wanted just by having me listen to him think aloud. (That is the definition of an Extrovert, but DS claimes to be an Introvert these days - time will tell.)

I'm pretty sure that's typical behavior for someone with a brain that functions very quickly. Waiting for someone to finish a thought out loud can seem like an eternity when you've already figured out what they are going to say AND come up with your response. I would guess that he's just trying to move the conversation along.

Hey! I'm not accustomed to being called a slow talker!

(erm, translation: yes, DAD22, I think I'm following you here..)

=Mich