8 year old son asks the same question over and over again. Any help or advice please.

[Lauren87Ellis]

Hi,

my 8 year old DS is currently on the pathway for either autism or ADHD. ADHD seems much more likely as the only symptoms he has of autism are sensory issues like stimming and some sensitivity to touch and things like the shower. He also doesn’t like change.

A lot of the behaviours DS displays could also be down to extreme anxiety.

DS has gone through phases of behaviour like a nervous cough/ clearing his throat, repeatedly wiping his mouth but the phase he’s going through at minute doesn’t seem to be passing and it’s getting really hard to deal with.

He will ask a question sometimes that he already knows the answer to like say are we going swimming on Saturday? I will say yes. 2 seconds later are we going swimming Saturday again I will say yes or maybe yes we are going swimming Saturday. This will go on about 4 or 5 times one after the other and then maybe start again later that same day and continuously leading up to what ever event. This will happen even over mundane things or negative things such as I will say if you keep talking when it’s bed time you will lose your I pad time tomorrow and will repeatedly say I have lost my iPad and I say no but stop taking now, so have I lost my IPad repeat repeat and then he will say so no more talking, me no no more taking and he will even say things like pinky promise it’s no more talking now.

It’s pretty much constant all day and he’s the oldest of 3. My 6 year gets frustrated with him because he finds it annoying and he hardly gets the chance to speak and my 3 year old has started copying the behaviour.

If I try to challenge it and say I’ve already answered that question what did I say, he has an almost physical response to it cries and squirms around and might slam his hands down in frustration. I’ve tried asking him to repeat the answer back after my first response but he refuses to and will just keep asking and asking getting more and more upset and wound up.

Is this a symptom of anxiety, Autism or ADHD or could it be OCD my husband was diagnosed as a teenager.

If anyone as any experience of this or any advice I’d love to know. Sorry my post is so long and chaotic I hope it mostly makes sense 🙈

I was going to suggest saying you’ve already discussed this and get him to answer but obviously that doesn’t work from further down your OP..

Not much help I’m afraid other than suggesting that you seek advice from professions?….. or maybe enquire about courses… school regularly send out info about free education for adults, some of the courses are around understanding autism / anxiety etc…

Do you have a social worker or other support system in place you can reach out to?…

Actually one thing that I was told helped (when I worked with autistic adults) is having something visual….
so could you have a weekly planner with days of the week on and have pictures that you place on it so that rather than ask he could go and look at the board? So on Saturday you’d have a cartoon picture or a photo of your son (whichever would work best) swimming… a picture of the cinema you could pop up when applicable, a picture of the front of his school etc…. And just put them up with small magnets?…. Then everytime he asks you can say ‘let’s go and look at the board!’

Could it be echolalia? (Which can be a sign of autism) Here's a BBC article discussing it. It sounds like he's trying to communicate with you but is struggling with language, so is repeating the questions/sentences he knows to try and say what he wants to say. He might be trying to say he is exciting about going swimming on Saturday, or that he'd like to talk about going swimming, but he's not quite got his words lined up to make that clear to you.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/tiny-happy-people/articles/z9p4jfr

Hope that helps a little! Good luck x

I suffered with OCD, starting at around 8, and still have tendencies and to me it really sounds like OCD rituals. Which would fit with his cough/wiping mouth. It must be so difficult for him as having to do the rituals is difficult but the fact that it is dependent on you to comply by full-filling the second half of the ritual by answering him - makes the OCD in me feel tense just thinking about it! And that would fit with his physical reaction when you don’t answer.

What helped me was reading anything I could find about OCD, which just meant I could start to sort of watch how my worry/tension/anxiety spiked when the ritual compulsion hit me (many many times a day), and made me realise it wasn’t just me and I could read about techniques to try to battle the compulsion. Which helped in the end. If his dad has ocd could he speak to him about it? Or could you read with him a book like “what to do when you worry too much”. Which might help if you think he is anxious even if it isn’t OCD and might open up the discussion of what it feels like to him when he is having to repeat all this stuff.

And in fact I’ve just looked on Amazon, and they have a book specifically about OCD in the series - “What to do when your brain gets stuck”. Might be worth reading that with him maybe?

@Donhill Thank you I will definitely have a look at the book.

Unfortunately I don’t think my husband has ever fully got his OCD under control or particularly has any coping mechanisms, he seems to just go from one compulsion to the next and the only time he’s ever seen any improvement is when taking antidepressants.

In your opinion do you think I should just continue to answer DS questions and not try to challenge it? I don’t want to cause him more stress but I also don’t want to feed into the compulsion.

should add that it’s only really me he does this with, maybe every now and then with my husband but 99% of the time it’s me.

@Everythingwinniethepooh that’s really interesting but DS has always been really good and communicating his feelings from a really young age, early talker and very aware of emotions in himself and others. This is one of the main reasons that I’ve never really thought he had autism, that and that he’s really sociable.

I will agree though that the questions are always much more intense if he’s either exited about something or worried about it.

“In your opinion do you think I should just continue to answer DS questions and not try to challenge it? I don’t want to cause him more stress but I also don’t want to feed into the compulsion.”

I’m not sure… although it causes him stress when you don’t answer, you don’t want to feed it, and you don’t want to get into a situation where your having to having to repeat ever more elaborate answers etc word for word. I think I would keep going as you are - answering sometimes, challenging sometimes, not saying the same thing each time. Anything to try and help the ritual (if that is what it is) not get too rigid and well established.

Is he open to talking about it at other times when he is not actually doing it? Even if he isn’t - if you read up on it, with or without him, so you can try and help him put into words what is going on maybe? And I’m sorry your husband hasn’t got his ocd under control. It is possible! It dominated my life for a while and for me learning about ocd really helped.

I guess he’s kind of open to talking about it sometimes other times he just closes off and just says he’s never going to stop doing. If I ask him why he does it he says he doesn’t know and gets annoyed at me as he thinks I should know why and be able to tell him.

my husbands OCD is part of a bigger problem much like my son it runs along side anxiety and he’s been told it is possible bipolar after a private assessment.

I will Definitely start reading up I’ve ordered when your brain gets stuck to get me started. So hopefully I will be able to give him some answers.

Thank you

Hi, did you get anywhere with your son repeating over and over? We have the exact same issue here :(