Monday, June 7, 2010

The Broken Record Syndrome

Amor Chiquito seems to feel the need to repeat a statement a good ten times, as if doing so will make me change my mind.

Example:

Amor Chiquito: I want see Jai.

Me: We can’t see Jai right now.

Amor Chiquito: I want see Jai please.
I want see Jai.
I want see Jai now.
I want see Jai.

Me: We can’t see Jai, honey.

Amor Chiquito: But why?

Repeat, repeat, repeat, and repeat some more…

This is recent. Up until today, I kept answering, repeating a variety of statements that all meant the same thing: no, we cannot see Jai right now. Can you spell frustrating and annoying? Because I can, believe you me!

I don’t know if this is the right thing to do, but here is what I started doing today:

Amor Chiquito: I want see Jai.

Me: We cannot see Jai now.

Amor Chiquito: But why?

Me: Jai is with his Daddy. We can see him later. I am done talking about seeing Jai. We can talk about the stop sign! Do you see the stop sign?

When she keeps repeating the statement, I don’t know if I should not say anything or talk about something else. I have tried saying things like:
“I understand. I want to see him too. But we can’t see him right now.” I’d love to say that that works. But it most definitely does not, not for my daughter, anyways.

It is too soon to tell if my new technique will work or not. I really hope it does!

What do you do when your child repeats the same statement ten times, even though she/he already knows the answer? What works? What does not?

Help a mommy at a loss, please!

1 comment:

  1. Tough one... you know I am in a similar situation... sometimes i just change the subject randomly after everything else, including validation and reasoning, has failed. Hey, did you see that truck? Ooh, listen to that bird.

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