Constantly asking what's going to happen next

[AngelDog]

My patience is being sorely tried at the moment. 2.7 y.o. DS spends half the day asking what is going to happen next.

It works on a micro-level (what's going to happen after breakfast? After you've had a shower? After we get home?). It also happens on a macro level (What are we going to do this morning? What are we doing this afternoon? What are we going to do tomorrow morning? Tomorrow afternoon? Wednesday morning? Wednesday afternoon?)

I often say I don't know because I haven't decided. Then DS goes on and on about 'What will happen after the thing you don't know?'

I can understand the macro-level questions, but when he's asking about things that are going to happen a week and a half into the future, I start losing the will to live. And he knows what will happen at a micro level eg after breakfast I have a shower. If I ask him to tell me, he can do so.

Has anyone had this, and have you found that producing some kind of timetable helps?

It's not so bad in the day: I tend to start getting a bit bothered by the analysis of everything by about tea time usually, but so far I've managed to be good humoured about it until she is asleep, although the questions carry on until her eyes close. We're currently working our way through the Mr Men library, two books at a time, at bedtime. It will be no surprise that the plot of Mr Men books doesn't stand much scrutiny, but she does it nonetheless. Another one of her devices is to ask how Mr. Wrong would do the task you are doing.

"How would Mr Wrong hoover?"
"he'd probably not plug the hoover in"
"and that would be wrong!"
"exactly - it doesn't work unless it's plugged in"
then questions about hoovering walls, hoovering the lawn, mowing the carpet etc etc. We get this about many tasks. Mr Wrong, in summary, is a wilful idiot.

The world view thing is great. The kid has recently been obsessed with elements, to the extent that I had to look some information up on the internet for her - she won't take 'I don't know' as an answer either, and responds with 'We could look it up on daddy's computer.'

With regard to needing oxygen to breathe - your DS will definitely like Here Comes the Science (and the CD is tolerable for adults - it's been in our car for a year I think) Here is a video of one of the tracks on it which contains almost your exact words :)

Thanks, Machadaynu - I'll have a look at that when I can get DH to fix my computer so it will let me see YouTube .

Children clearly find it difficult to accept the idea of ignorance. If I say I don't know the answer and that Daddy probably won't know (and we're not in reach of a book or computer), DS will say hopefully, "Other mummies might know", or "Other daddies might know." He can cope with the idea of one or two people not knowing something, but not with completely unknown concepts.

Actually, now he always wants to know why I don't know the things I don't know. It's a good incentive to answer his questions, I suppose.

He asks what we're doing next a lot less now which is fab.

Making a joke of things has slightly backfired though as the repeated questions about what we're doing has changed into repeated questions about why I suggested whatever silly alternative I came up with.

It will only get worse. Once they call tell the time and have a better grasp of the concept of time, it's a whole different ballpark.

At the moment I'm surviving the 'what is X doing?' (DD is 2.5 and asks this all the time, about everything) by answering with whatever comes into my head first. Example:
DD - What is that?
Me - A window
DD - What is that in the window?
Me - That's coloured glass. It's called stained glass.
DD - We don't have that at home.
Me - No, we don't. Some houses have stained glass in their windows, but it's more common in churches and town halls and things.
DD - So what is that in the window?
Me - Which bit?
DD - The red bit. What is it?
Me - Er... a red square of stained glass.
DD - What is it doing?
Me - Seeing as it's in the town hall, providing an abstract representation of the Industrial Revolution, I assume.
DD - That's nice. What is that bus doing?

I used to get 'what's that dogs name?' followed by 'what's his job?'. I was so excited when the Guide Dogs started training the dogs around here so I had an answer!

@ both. DS does like asking what things are for, but not incessantly, thankfully.

If I don't know things, DS wants to know the possibilites now e.g.

DS: Where's that lady going?
Me: I don't know.
DS: Where could she be going?
Me: She could be going home.
DS: What are all the other places she could be going?

Frontpaw, I can guess what you mean about the time. DS is interested, but it's limited to asking "what time it was" (which can mean what time/day/week/season/year). He wanted to know why it was last week that we borrowed certain books from the library. Difficult to answer!