toddler time

Why, Why, Why Does My Toddler Echo Herself And so Much?

Photograph: Sue Barr/Getty Images/Epitome Source

My ii-and-a-half-yr-old daughter is at an age where I tin never predict what will come out of her mouth next. Eve attends preschool all day, five days a calendar week, and often comes home repeating phrases or songs (or fragments of them) for which I have niggling to no context. So far, every unfamiliar utterance has been completely innocuous, but it's still jarring to exist reminded that she's developing into a person with independent thoughts, proclivities, and daily stimuli. However sentimental my initial reaction, though, those feelings ordinarily disappear by the time she repeats some new sentence for the 3rd time. The fourth. The 5th … the sixth.

"I'yard a Super Reader! I get to fly the plane!" Eve said i evening at dwelling near two months agone, her tiny voice declaring her new identity as a Super Reader, making sure I knew she was on her way to pilot an aircraft. I had no frame of reference for what she was trying to communicate to me as I toiled over the hot oven and stove, pausing every two minutes to shoo her out of the kitchen then she wouldn't zoom into any scalding surfaces. She ignored the television I'd guiltily switched on in favor of careening around the apartment shouting the same phrases over and over, until she decided I was not responding with enough enthusiasm, and planted herself right exterior of the kitchen — far enough abroad that I couldn't kick her out, merely close enough to drive me completely out of my mind.

"I'm a Super Reader!" she insisted.

"Y'all're a Super Reader?"

"I go to wing the plane!"

"Awesome, become and fly the plane!" Please. After the tenth or eleventh repetition, I abruptly stopped what I was doing to kneel downwards and peer into her face, at present one-half-agape she was experiencing some massive cerebral breakup and I had been also zoned out to find. She watched me warily, somewhat amused, merely didn't appear to exist in any sort of physiological distress. "I'm good," she said. Then: "I'k a Super Reader! I get to fly the aeroplane!"

Thankfully, she doesn't always repeat phrases quite to this extent each time, but I would be lying if I pretended these occurrences weren't … annoying. She is my precious child, and information technology's a joy to come across her happy, but let's exist honest: In that location is never a fourth dimension that I am in the mood to be told the same verbal matter five, six, 7 times in succession, with no cease in sight. Of course, similar most irritations inherent to her age, I grit my teeth and deal with it, out of amused resignation. Considering it's merely a phase that's non only inevitable, only signals her continuing development.

For a tiny human being constantly soaking up stimuli and learning to translate it into speech, my daughter's beliefs is completely typical. I spoke to Julie Wright, co-author with Heather Turgeon of Now Say This: The Right  Words to Solve Every Parenting Dilemma, about this particular behavior, and the best mode to respond to information technology. "They practise it to take in information and acquire new language; repetition is how they study everything, merely the way we do something new and circuitous, like ballet or the violin," Wright told me. The aforementioned mode my girl learned how to put on her shoes and apply a fork through repeated attempts, she consolidates her budding vocabulary, grammer, and syntax by trying out foreign words and phrases until they become trusted, familiar.

"Toddlers are trying to imitate us considering they want to be included in the conversation," Wright added. "They are practicing their social language skills." This developmental phase can definitely be wearing — similar when she tosses a carrot onto the footing for the third time, glancing at me with a smirk to see how I'll react — just knowing that I can ascribe her antics to an evolutionary mandate that seeks consistency in responses grants me a bit more patience. A bit.

When I asked Wright how I should respond to these spells, her answer wasn't surprising: Don't rush to make information technology stop. "Wonder about the underlying reasons she'south repeating and start past attuning to those," she reasoned. "Listen carefully, ask questions, be interested and help her aggrandize her understanding." So much of parenting is playing a function, of course: the role of chef who naturally cooks well-balanced meals all the fourth dimension, the office of avid listener at school recitals, of unofficial soccer coach at the neighborhood park. Entrusted with tiny lilliputian lives, we mold ourselves into a person who may not come quite naturally, but with do, in fourth dimension, these parts we've been assigned become a bit easier. They brainstorm to feel less forced.

If at that place's anything I've learned during the past few months of this current repetition stage, it's the futility of phoning it in. Distracted, one-discussion responses are not just frustrating and dismissive, they also simply farther communicate that Mommy didn't hear what I said, then I demand to say information technology again. Now, I attempt to make a conscious effort to listen to what she's telling me as if I've never heard information technology before — and rather than leave her an opening to repeat herself, I steer the conversation in a direction that challenges her to answer questions. An opportunity for learning, and a distraction from yet another repetition.

Of course, in that location'south another reason why listening to her is so important: comprehension. Sure, in that location are times I'1000 still unable to parse what she's saying, either because she can't fully enunciate, or I'thou mishearing her, or both. But there'south no excuse for not trying. Just a few weeks ago, I plopped her onto her potty and it took me several tries to sympathise what it was she was trying to tell me. She was, it turned out, not informing me of a "prophecy," only demanding that I get out the bathroom so she could have "privacy." A humbling moment for a number of reasons, and without a doubt, 1 of my proudest to date.

The same way I can but vaguely think the phase before this one (when did she end trying to swallow bubbles?), by fall I'1000 certain there will be a completely new gear up of behaviors to contend with, to frantically Google when my nerves and patience are frayed. Until so, I'll do my best to go on giving her the verbal affirmation she needs and deserves. When she's hopping toward me, eager to share another peek into her riotous petty mind, I'll endeavor my best to exist all ears, from the very get-go telling to the eleventh.

Why, Why, Why Does My Toddler Repeat Herself So Much?