Hmmm... could be perfectly normal but here's some food for thought. I went to a workshop on how children learn by a prominent occupational therapist. It was quite fantastic, especially learning about the different parts of the brain, etc.
Anyway.. one of the big points for the night was this - what gets our attention, maintains our attention and impedes our attention? The presenter went through a list of key inhibitors/promoters - but the major point was actually attracting attention - ie., that point in time where you get your child to stop what they're doing/thinking and actually get them attending to your communication. Sometimes this could just be eye contact; other times you have to ask the child whether they're ready to be attentive. Is your child attentive to you while you're talking? Or have you interrupted an internal conversation going on in their head? Does this give you any ideas? jojo
Sounds like a great presentation and makes a lot of sense.
Geo: My DD (4 in August) does this to me all the time and yes it is frustrating but I always assume that I haven't gotten her full attention. She is always thinking; even when she asks me a question I can just see the little wheels still churning. My way of handling it is she asks the question: I answer the question. She will ask the same question again and yes usually when I'm in the middle of answering it, so I answer it one more time. But if she asks it AGAIN and she will this is when I redirect her with something like "DD, mommy just answered you twice. What was the answer?" 95% of time she knows the answer I gave her and is just in a strange pattern. But when she answers her own question she moves on.
