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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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Original poster

LadySanders · 07/02/2011 13:04

a poisoned marzipan chessboard, wow, you've got to admire the imagination...

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inthesticks · 07/02/2011 15:49

No they don't grow out of it. DS1 (15) loves lists. I think he knows the guiness book of records off by heart.
Eleison - I think we are talking about the same child.

He will recite tedious lists of his scores in a computer game and I have 15 years of practise at feigned interest.

When he got a girlfriend I had to wonder whether she was impressed by his knowledge of the 25 highest mountains in the world..

Actually DH was a bit like that when we met but 30 years later he has mellowed a bit.

Alibabaandthe40nappies · 07/02/2011 15:56

My little brother was like this.

Writing it down worked to an extent, I remember him having lots of books where he had to try and fill in all the varieties of something that he had seen.

It did pass eventually, but he is still an obsessive 'fact learner', and hates to feel like he doesn't have enough info on something!

choccyp1g · 07/02/2011 16:04

My heart sinks when DS starts a conversation with "Which would you rather..." as it usually involves choosing between brands and marques of performance cars. And you are not allowed to say I don't know.

My latest response is to say I'd get him to research it, because "he is so good at that sort of thing". Funnily enough this seems to work sometimes, perhaps because really it is all about boys showing off their own (useless) knowledge.

mathanxiety · 07/02/2011 16:20

You will be off the hook when he gets into sport statistics and can find an online community of soulmates. This is what fantasy football was invented for. American sports are the best for statistics -- baseball and American football both involve endless recitation of figures and averages. Point your DSs in the direction of fantasy football and you won't look back.

Boys seem to be attracted to highly irrelevant and mind numbingly boring technical details and the minutiae of just about everything and it takes some of them a while to figure out that their mothers are just not that into all that. I tried starting conversations about things I was actually interested in to counter DS's sports jag, and he and I have spent many a happy hour discussing the merits of various WW2 tanks and other weaponry, plus tactics, technical aspects of uniforms, and military history in general, because sports talk makes me want to die glaze over after about half an hour.

Original poster

LadySanders · 07/02/2011 17:12

i am both reassured (that it's normal) but slightly depressed (at the thought he won't grow out of it) by all your responses

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WimpleOfTheBallet · 07/02/2011 20:31

How funny and how odd! You learn something every day!

WimpleOfTheBallet · 07/02/2011 20:33

Just asked DH about it and he reckons it's them trying to work out WHY something is better than another....they loe to know what's best in his opinion.

mackereltaitai · 07/02/2011 20:38

Maris Piper.

Speed of response is key.

American sports? Pah. Cricket. Take the Cricket Quiz Game that my facthead PIL brought for ds yesterday. It's for 8 year olds plus. Sample question: 'In 1928, Wally Harper made a record number of catches for a first class match. Was it 10, 11 or 12?'

mackereltaitai · 07/02/2011 20:38

Oh, and -

Read High Fidelity.

mathanxiety · 07/02/2011 22:00

I give you The Quarterback Rating Calculator -- and I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I found this calculator, for baseball statistics and predictions. Finally a bit of rest for me. Nothing warms the cockles of DS's heart like ratios and averages. There comes a time in every boy's life when the raw data are not enough and he has to combine and calculate and form predictions with the numbers...

hormonesnomore · 07/02/2011 22:03

Phase? Stage? My DS still does this (albeit modified now he's 30). I think it's his attempt at making conversation.

Original poster

LadySanders · 08/02/2011 09:46

the high fidelity thing did occur to me, but i pushed it to the back of my mind hoping he will move on to other more interesting conversational gambits...

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inthesticks · 08/02/2011 15:04

I thought about this thread last night when DS said goodnight to me.
" Mum, do you know the speed of light in meters per second?"

Of course I do darling, I keep all sorts of statistics like that in my head.......

Next year he will be doing GCSE Statistics.

I expect he will love it.

NormanTheForeman · 08/02/2011 20:35

Tonight's offering was - "So, Mummy, what's the best thing about being by the sea?" I just burst into laughter, after reading this thread (and then had to explain to ds why I was laughing )

Eleison · 09/02/2011 09:01

When ds1 was only just old enough to read the Guinness World Record book I remember him saying something like "Wow! Wow!, such-and-such an eagle weighs 10 lubbles and has an acceleration rate of 10 em ess two!"

In other words he didn't have a clue what "lb" meant, or what "m/s2" meant, but was still overwhlemingly impressed by the sheer 'factiness' of the description, and by the idea that, whatever the meansurement meant, it still amounted to some sort of superlative.

NormanTheForeman · 09/02/2011 09:06

Ah yes, and it's wise never to play ds at Top Trumps, when it's one of his specialist subjects.

I don't think anyone has ever beaten him at Lifeboat Ace Trumps yet....

Original poster

LadySanders · 09/02/2011 13:14

perhaps i will point him in the direction of a copy of guiness book of records then... though it might just open me up to even more conversations i don't fully understand!

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geraldinetheluckygoat · 09/02/2011 13:21

my nephew used to do thie with Bionicles "which is your favorite, but why? dont you think this one's weapons are better though? Do you like the colour of this one or this one better? which are better at attacking enemies? Which would be better at crochet?"

He is fourteen now, and I think he has defitinely stopped. He's more interested in Myleene Klass now

Eleison · 09/02/2011 13:23

"Which would be better at crochet"

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