Why Does My Child Talk About the Same Thing Over and Over? Parenting Tips for Repetitive, Obsessive Conversations
The rain streaked the minivan windows last Tuesday, and I was one missed turn away from being late to 7-year-old Eli’s soccer practice, already mentally juggling the forgotten goldfish crackers and the dry cleaning that would close in 45 minutes when he started in again. “Did you know axolotls can regrow their entire spinal cords? Did you know that? How many axolotls do you think are left in the wild?” I grunted a response, kept my eyes on the road. Two minutes later: “Mom. Did you know axolotls can regrow their spinal cords?”
By the time we pulled into the soccer parking lot, I was grinding my teeth. This had been going on for three weeks. Every car ride, every dinner, every lull in conversation circled back to axolotls. When we got to the field, he pulled Coach Mike aside before practice even started, tugged out his kid-sized smart watch to show a photo of an axolotl in a pet store tank, and started explaining why they need colder water. I stood off to the side, smiling awkwardly at the other parents, my face hot. This wasn’t the first time. Six months ago it was volcanoes. Three months ago it was orangutan extinction. I’d been staying up until 10pm scrolling search results for “obsessive conversations in kids,” and every other result warned about OCD, anxiety, or neurodevelopmental concerns that I’d missed.
I brought it up at Eli’s annual checkup a week before the axolotl car ride, and his pediatrician, who’s been seeing my kids for years, leaned back in her chair and shrugged it off mostly. She said for kids between 4 and 10, repetitive talking about one favorite topic is almost always normal. Their brains haven’t fully built the skill to tuck a big, buzzing, exciting idea away and pull it out only when the time is right. When an adult learns a wild new fact, we can set it aside to share over dinner with a friend later. For a kid, that big thought just sits at the front of their brain, bouncing around, until they get it out enough to process it. It doesn’t automatically mean something’s wrong. That was a huge relief, but I still needed a way to not have my entire daily conversation taken over by salamanders that can regrow limbs.
She gave me a few small, concrete tricks that have actually worked better than I expected. The first was to stop saying “we already talked about this.” I used to say that all the time, and it just made Eli ask again, louder, because he assumed I hadn’t heard him the first time. Now I use a set script that I can pull out without thinking: I acknowledge his excitement first, state the current activity, and promise a specific time to talk about it later. “That is such a cool axolotl fact! Right now we’re figuring out what topping to get on our pizza. We’re going to sit on the couch after dinner and talk all about axolotls for 10 whole minutes, okay?”
At first, he pushed back a little, but after two or three days of being consistent, he stopped testing it. He knew the time was guaranteed, so he didn’t have to squeeze the topic into every empty space. When we’re in public and he corners someone, like he did with Coach Mike, I don’t yank him away or scold him under my breath. I walk over, join the conversation for 10 seconds, and give him an out that doesn’t make him feel silly for caring. “Eli’s been learning all about axolotls this month—can you believe they can regrow entire spines? Alright, bud, Coach needs to get the team out on the field, let’s save the rest of the facts for the ride home.” That keeps everyone from feeling awkward, and it doesn’t make him think his excitement is something to be ashamed of.
The third trick was to actually show up for the scheduled chat time. I used to half-listen while I folded laundry or scrolled my phone, and I noticed he’d still bring up axolotls the next day because he didn’t feel like he’d gotten to say everything. Now I put my phone down, ask a follow-up question or two, look at all 17 photos he has saved on his watch, and let him talk the full 10 minutes. That fills his need to share, so the rest of the day is clear for other topics.
It doesn’t work 100% of the time. Last Saturday, we were at a classmate’s birthday party, and he pulled the birthday boy’s mom aside to talk about axolotl conservation right when she was cutting the cake. She laughed and said her oldest used to do the same thing with T-Rexes, so it was fine, but I still felt that little twinge of embarrassment. When he went through the orangutan phase a few months back, the topic came with a lot of big, sad feelings about deforestation, so we expanded our scheduled time to plan a small action—we looked up a conservation group, drew a picture to send them, and that helped him work through the hard feelings that kept making him bring it up.
Right now, the axolotl phase is winding down. I’ve noticed he’s starting to ask more questions about weather satellites this week, so I know what’s coming next. I still catch myself getting annoyed when he asks the same fact for the fifth time in an hour, and I don’t stay up panicking anymore. If it ever got to the point where he wouldn’t play with friends, wouldn’t try new things, or got violently upset if he couldn’t talk about the topic, I’d call the doctor to dig deeper. But for now, it’s just how my kid’s brain works: he latches onto something that fascinates him, and he has to share it over and over until it stops buzzing. We just work around it, day by day.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Why Does My Child Talk About the Same Thing Over and Over