Is your three year old asking the same question over and over?

I had a mom write me recently asking for some advice around her almost three year old who repeats the same question over and over. She said despite re-phrasing her question, she was still asking and it was driving her crazy. She said she even had to resort to putting head phones on to drown out her daughter. My first suggestion was to do exactly what she was doing and that is to re-phrase the question. This is typical behavior from a three year old. It’s almost like the response we’re giving them doesn’t make sense.

I suggested to her that after repeating her answer and re-phrasing the question to just  distract her. Try telling her a story or asking her question about something completely unrelated. Show her something out the window or start reading a book. Try anything to get her mind away from the question. You know you’ve answered her question and tried different ways of answering.

This question was asked on the mom’s forum, Connected Moms where I am the resident parenting coach so everyone gets to see both the question and the answer and it is open for others to respond. One mom responded saying what she does after her son keeps asking the same question and she has given him the same answer, is ask the question back to him. She used the example of him asking where they were going while they’re in the car. If she says “the grocery store” and he keeps asking, she then turns to him and asks: “Where are we going?” She says he will nearly always give the correct answer and that’s the end of it. What a smart way of handling it, I thought.