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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

"what's your favourite potato" - ds1 age 9 obsessive ranking... tell me he'll grow out of this and how do i manage it?

45 replies

LadySanders · 07/02/2011 09:46

(yes i did say 'ranking')

ds1 is 9. every day, i am asked to 'rank' items. what's your favourite dog. what's your favourite colour. what's your favourite episode of ben 10. what's your favourite advert on tv. last night it hit a new low with 'what's your favourite type of potato?'.

if i respond, i then get 20 more questions about why i picked that one over another one.

if i tell him this is the 50th time we've had this conversaion and i'm bored rigid with it, he gets tearful.

if i try to turn it around by saying what's YOUR favourite potato darling? he just shrugs and continues to question me.

it wouldn't be so bad, but he doesn't even pick different things... he has asked me my favourite dog about 250 times, and every time my answer is 'i don't like dogs at all' which he knows perfectly well.

this has been going on for at least 3 years but seems to be getting worse instead of better... anyone been through similar and found strategies for making these conversations less tedious/painful?

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FlingonTheValiant · 07/02/2011 10:35

Wish I could say yes, but I have a friend who loves doing this to people. He even turned it into an art project for his degree.

I found the best way to deal with him is to say something he really isn't expecting. Maybe come up with something wacky/he hasn't heard of and then send him off to find out if it's an appropriate answer. Learnt this from friend's older brother.

Friend: what's you favourite watercolour? (he was on an art kick)
Brother: ultramarine

Original poster

LadySanders · 07/02/2011 11:24

hmmm, wacky, ok, i'll try that approach!

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meltedmarsbars · 07/02/2011 11:26

Yep,

Give them crepes, they'll roll and slice them then ask you to rank the slices.

This determines what order he'll eat them in.

nineyearoldsarerude · 07/02/2011 11:28

My son is just like this and he is nine too!

NormanTheForeman · 07/02/2011 11:29

Lol, I get this from ds (aged 10) only it's usually things like cars, lifeboats, train stations etc. He must have asked me hundreds of times what my favourite car is, despite the fact he knows I have no interest whatsoever in cars (I don't even drive!)

Original poster

LadySanders · 07/02/2011 11:30

this morning i had to answer questions on my favourite car number plate. really.

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gramercy · 07/02/2011 11:30

My ds does this. He is 12 so I'm afraid you're not out of the woods yet!

It has now moved on from "Mummy, why have you ranked Kraven above Deadpool?" (Marvel superheroes to the uninitiated!) to "Go on, please rank your favourite largest grossing Oscar-winning films from the last two decades" or "Who are your top five favourite best-supporting actors from the nominations of the past five years"

Boys and their obsessions...

meltedmarsbars · 07/02/2011 11:31

They still do it as men!

Adair · 07/02/2011 11:31

Hilarious! i had not heard of the obsessive ranking phase... will await with joy.

Francagoestohollywood · 07/02/2011 11:32

I have no answers, but my ds (8.5) sounds quite similar.
At the moment he is very interested in mountains because he is into skiing and asks which is the tallest, which is my favourite, do I prefer Alps or the Dolomites, do I know how much snow has fallen on each mountain in Italy (I don't, he does, as he checks the forecast everyday from december to March)...

I have to say though that he seems to be less interested in ranking... I think ranking mania reached its peak last year, and it was all about football players... I prefer talking about mountains, to be honest!

Original poster

LadySanders · 07/02/2011 11:33

gramercy, yep, ds1 likes to spread out his pokemon cards all over the table, then gives me choices, he has a whole system where it takes about 20 minutes to compare them all and establish that my favourite one is still the same favourite as when he asked me last week..... aaaaaaaaarrrrrggggghhhh

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Adair · 07/02/2011 11:33

PS Now I think about it, my sister did does this too and wrote them all down in a book...

Eleison · 07/02/2011 11:34

My older son has done this a lot in the past. I think it is partly because he genuinely does have a bit of an obsession with ranking (a lot of males do, hence games like Top Trumps and books like Guinness World Records), and partly because he is trying to engage in conversation, get a response and keep the conversation going with open questions -- but doesn't quite have the conversational maturity do you this in more nuanced ways.

I found that my son was very aware that it wasn't a good conversational strategy -- but that this awareness just heightened his lack of conversational self-confidence, which in turn trapped him further in the same clumsy conversational device, almost as a confession of confusion about how to talk with someone.

NormanTheForeman · 07/02/2011 11:34

Oh, we also have to say what our least favourite thing is. E.g. least favourite railway station (I think his is currently Birmingham New Street...)

Original poster

LadySanders · 07/02/2011 11:34

actually writing them down in a book is a good idea... then i could refer him back to it, and perhaps he might content himself with writing his own down. i like that...

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Original poster

LadySanders · 07/02/2011 11:36

eleison that sounds similar, i do sometimes think it's an effort to engage me... ds1 used to be a brilliant conversationalist, i don't know what's gone wrong...

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NormanTheForeman · 07/02/2011 11:38

My ds is a good conversationalist though - he talks about all sorts of things. But he is quite obsessive, and remembers a lot of facts in great detail (stuff about cars, lifeboats, aeroplanes etc).

AgentProvocateur · 07/02/2011 11:39

God, I'd completely forgotten about this stage. My lowest point was being asked what my favourite kind of lamp-post was!

NormanTheForeman · 07/02/2011 11:42

Lol at lamp post! When ds was about 4, he was completely fixated by fire engines, and all related items.....including fire hydrants! He used to get very excited about spotting them when we were out anywhere....

Eleison · 07/02/2011 11:50

Another awful conversation involves an initial question something like "How much do you think that Britain's tallest man weighs?"

I will answer that I don't know; then I'll be urged to "say roughly"; I repeat that I don't have a clue; then child says "But if you HAD to say.. what would you say?"

And on and on until I give a completely random answer that they KNOW means nothing.

Eventually I made a point of answering "About 70 feet" to every "How much" question of that sort.

Eleison · 07/02/2011 11:51

(This incidentally in boys old enough to make just as good a guess at the answer as I could)

NormanTheForeman · 07/02/2011 11:51

That sounds so familiar, eleison! I'm not allowed to "not answer" the question!

Original poster

LadySanders · 07/02/2011 11:55

yes yes yes, exactly the same for us, i HAVE to answer even when on a topic i know nothing about. oh well at least i know i'm not alone

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Francagoestohollywood · 07/02/2011 12:02

Same here "make a guess mamma"...

at lamp post

Eleison · 07/02/2011 12:09

Another conversation-type is "Which would you rather ... A or B?"

My very best example of this was from DS2 when aged about 7: "How would you rather die ... by eating a poisoned marzipan chessboard or by falling off a mountain?"

In these convos, too, it is not permissable to NOT give an answer.

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