How do you respond to a toddler who endlessly says “why?”?

Question

My wife and I had joked about expecting endless "why?" questions from our son while we were expecting, and I thought I was prepared for it.

In fact, I thought the stereotypical constant flow of "why? why? why?" would be trivial, since I enjoy explaining things. I was confident that anything I couldn't explain, I could answer by "let's look it up!".

Now that my son has entered that phase, though, the reality is that there are lots of "why?" questions that completely flummox me.

"Why?" has become a catch-all response in some situations, and I simply can't answer some of them (e.g. while trying to explain something by pointing out a previous example: "remember when we went to the park?" followed by "why?"). Other times, it seems almost reflexive, and the answer seems fairly obvious to me (e.g. "Do you want french toast or pancakes for breakfast?" followed by "why?").

I don't want to discourage his curiosity. On the contrary: I want to answer as many of his questions as possible. Is there a good strategy for dealing with the "why?" questions that simply don't make sense?

Answer 1

I'm probably going to experience this situation pretty soon, too. One very interesting idea I've picked up a long time ago is not to accept a short "why" but encourage a full-sentence question.

Requiring a full sentence forces the child to actually think about the topic before asking.
What is the topic? What do I want to know? How can I phrase that?
This is excellent training for thinking smartly about things later in life, and it clearly shows that more effort in the input yields better results.

It also has two immediate wins for you:

1. You can easily dismiss a "why" if it's annoying you.
2. Making the "why" a little more difficult might make him dismiss the question unless he really wants to know.

Your challenge is to be consistent about this... why should you get to choose when a short "why" is acceptable? If you're too lazy to enforce the full sentence, then you can't expect the effort on his part either.

Answer 2

I usually respond to endless 'why's with questions that focus on critical thinking. "Do you want french toast or pancakes for breakfast?" "Why?" "Well, which do you think would make your tummy happier?" "Why?" "We eat because we want happy bodies and happy tummies..." and at least with my two, it eventually winds down. Or maybe my questions overload their little minds and they get temporarily choked on all the new ideas.

Sounds to me, though, that his "why"'s are really just "more conversation please" requests. If he answers the french toast vs. pancakes question, then the conversation is over.

And of course, if the conversation starts to delve into the truly odd, feel free to be silly. "Well, pancakes make your tummy want to sing "twinkle twinkle little star" and french toast makes your tummy sing "modern major general". Which song do you think your tummy wants to sing?"

Answer 3

I love the answers I've gotten so far, but I thought I might as well chime in and describe what I have been doing, since its a little... different.

Generally, I try to answer his questions as best I can... within reason. Many of his questions I can answer fairly clearly, and do so (e.g. Q:"why [is the kitty afraid of me]?" A:"because you're much bigger than her, and you're loud!", or Q:"why [can't I stand on the chair]?" A:"because we don't want you to fall down and get hurt!").

However, for ones that require much more complicated answers that I don't know off the top of my head, are far too complicated for him to understand yet, or for which I simply don't have enough time to launch into a detailed exposition, I summarize it with one word. To this end, I've developed some broad categories of one-word answers that cover almost any situation: "biology", "genetics", "physics", "gravity", "thermodynamics", "special relativity", "chemistry", "economics", and "tradition" are the most frequently used.

I do tend to play fast and loose with some of those (anything involving time gets lumped under "special relativity", for example, even though the topics rarely involve objects in motion), and sometimes I pick one as a silly answer when the "why?" question seems particularly silly (e.g. "stop hitting yourself on the head with your sippy cup!" "why?" "gravity!"; and yes, that's an actual example :P).

We actually started this game with just one catch-all answer of "gravity", which helped set the tone for it as a game, but I eventually decided that having a variety of answers/non-answers was more appropriate and useful. My hope is that the diversity of one-word answers gives him some indication of how much variety there is out there, while also letting him know that I am trying to provide information, but some of it is just too big to convey easily.

This gives me the option of either educating or dismissing, without seeming dismissive, on a case-by-case basis. I do still, on occasion, say "I don't know" when appropriate, but if that is followed up with a "why?" then the answer is invariably "gravity".

It is interesting to see how he reacts to it, as he definitely has favorites of the categories, and it leads to some pretty amusing conversations. For example:

Me: "She [our daycare provider] has a cold."

Son: "Why?"

Me: "Biology."

Son: "No!"

Me: "No? Not biology?"

Son: "No, daddy, not biology! Thermonynamics!" (I think that was a pretty good attempt for 2 years old!)

Me: (laughing) Thermodynamics?

Son: Yes. Thermonynamics!

Answer 4

Although I have no personal experience with the 'why' phase yet, I imagine that the occasional: "What do you think?" thrown back at him would give you a few seconds to catch your breath. More importantly, it could give you a lot of insight into how your child perceives the world, and what type of answer from you would be meaningful for him. However, I don't think you can really stop the whys coming. When kids realize that things have causal relationships, they're obsessed with that knowledge for a while. And it takes them a while to understand causality completely, hence the unusual moments when he asks why.

Answer 5

Part of it is curiosity, but kids also take a lot of pleasure in controlling their parents. It's only fair, I guess. After a certain point, they're just pushing their boundaries to see how far they can take it, and it becomes a game rather than a learning opportunity.

After you recognize it has turned into a game, you can either play along or just say something like "that's enough." Just keep in mind he's not really expecting an intelligent answer to his nonsensical questions.

Answer 6

I usually encourage my child to ask a more specific question. My 4-year old asks "Why?", to which I respond "Do you mean 'what were our reasons for going to the park?' Or do you mean 'what is the connection between the two examples?'"

I tell my children that I will try to answer any of their questions, but that "Why?" is not a question in and of itself. Encouraging them to ask more specific questions has opened up some very interesting dialogue. Getting them to think through the question they want to ask has really helped to enrich our dialogue, and I've gotten a lot of compliments from other parents who are amazed at how well they can converse.

Requesting more specific questions also helps to ferret out the "Why?"'s that are used purely as a stall tactic, which also happens frequently.

"Why?"
"Can you ask a more specific question?"
"No... I just want to know why..."
"Ok... when you think of a more specific question, I'll try to answer it."
"Hmph"

Answer 7

I came across a very interesting study on the topic a while ago, when my youngest was still at this age, and I managed to find it again. Unfortunately it's in French, but I'll summarize it here.

Basically, the article says that kids ask questions because they really want to find out. They want explanations. But the key is to give them exactly the amount of information that they are able to handle, which is more an art than science :) They will keep asking again and again if they haven't received an answer that satisfies them. And the study showed that, very often, we seem to provide more information than what they are looking for.

So there doesn't seem to be a single, perfect method to handle yes questions, or at least the experts haven't figured it out yet.

But what I took from this is that it's very important to keep answering. I think you are handling this perfectly well. And maybe your son is right, maybe the right answer is Thermodynamics :)

Answer 8

I've learned to turn the tables on my toddler and start asking them questions. I first quizzed him on baby animals: what do you call a baby (dog, cat, duck etc.)? But this was easily extended to asking them questions about our environment, or their own likes etc.

This seems to satisfy the same thirst for knowledge and interaction but allows us parents a reprieve from the barrage of questions.

Answer 9

When I'm in my spouse's company, I just re-ask her the same question.

The kid sometimes listens, sometimes forgets about the question and sometimes notices that my attention moves away from her and interrupts into the dialog with her own explanation.

It looks like this:

Daughter: "Dad, why the sun rises late in the winter"?

Me: "That's a good question, dear! Let me ask mom. Mom, why the sun rises late in the winter"?

Mom: "Well, it's because the Earth's axis is inclined … (and so on)"

Daughter, after 2 minutes: "No! It's because it's cold in the winter and the sun doesn't want to get out of bed into the cold!" (or whatever).

If we are alone and whys keep coming on a rate above appropriate, I pretend (or sometimes don't even pretend) to call the spouse and do the same routine.

The kid sees that I actually try to answer the question but knows that if she asks questions too often she will lose my attention.