Do your kids have good chat?

[Hotdayinjuly]

Older kids/tween 7-12. Mine seem to have regressed seem to need to fill every sentence with nonsense will fixate on things and ask silly or repetitive questions. Having meaningful or interesting conversations with them asking too much? It drives me up the wall but short of asking them to stop is there any tips to get them speaking better?

How nasty their kids

I correct my 5 year old when she gets like that and warn her that I won't respond as it's really grating. Dd10 has always talked like a small OAP, side effect of grandparent childcare!!

I'm a primary teacher. This is very common. It is often because they want to chat, but don't know what to chat about, so chat shit instead. Try channeling it into something more meaningful or redirecting it, or asking questions about what they are talking about to make it into something more two way. Kids will often fill silence with chatter so start the conversation instead of them always having to initiate. Try starting conversation about more interesting topics - they often know more than you think.

Ha I knew somebody would think I’m mean. I try very hard not get frustrated and tell the to stop. To think of an example it can go something like ‘did your friends call you Shelly when you were young?’ ‘No, I was always just called Michelle and preferred that’
‘did you like being called Shelly when you were little?’ ‘No, you’ve asked this before’
‘What was your nickname from Aunty B, Shelly?’ ‘No’ ‘can I call you Shelly?’
(not really called Michelle but similar) - this can happen over a 20 minute period or can go on half a day with repeated questioning on a topic.

DD is 5 and is in this phase well and truly. Chatter from morning to night, sometimes it is a valid question ‘Where does the moon go in the morning?’ But then it becomes a constant, but why, but why, but why, but how. 😂 Have to work hard at containing myself, I work with children and young people in mental health so I’ve usually had so much mental space filled already that day that it can be a lot. I’ve tried to manage it by answering the first couple of times, then asking DD whether she remembers my answer and asking her to tell me why, then if it’s turning into a bit of a silly game I’ll play along for a bit and then encourage her to go play/do some quiet crafts with me/tell her toys a story about what she’s thinking instead.
This strategy works about 80% of the time as often she will be satisfied about ‘being heard and seen’ which I suspect is the underlying function to her behaviours. The other 20% she continues to melt my head and I send her to go ask DH instead to see if he has a different answer - teamwork 😅

They're great, but they can be unbearably irritating and I think it's ok to acknowledge that.

I'll often just ask them why they're asking me the same question over and over or just say "I don't want to talk about this anymore, it's getting boring". Then shift the conversation onto something more interesting. As pp said they often just want conversation/interaction so they generally take it quite well if you just call them on it, but then help them to engage in something more interesting.

Mine do both (same age range as OP) - they can have great chats, silly chats or completely infuriating chats (often punctuated with “nothing beats a Jet 2 holiday” or “l-l-l-lava”) which drive me potty. The line between silly/infuriating can be a fine one and where that line falls probably partly depends on my mood as well.

I really like the pp’s suggestion that they are just practising chatting or trying to start a conversation but don’t know how. I agree the best response is to keep the conversation going but try to redirect - eg the poster whose child is asking about nicknames could ask if anyone has a nickname at school, or if they’d enjoy having a nickname, or discuss how nicknames come about. Sometimes though they really want to be daft and that’s ok, except when it isn’t and you end up saying something helpful like JUST STOP TALKING!