What can I do to stop my daughter from her obsessive question-asking before she alienates everyone?

Q:

I’d like to know how to help my eight-year-old daughter. Since she started speaking, she’s always asked a ton of questions. At this point, it’s actually exhausting spending time with her — and not just for us, but for her classmates, friends, and teachers, too. People (even her cousins) are starting to avoid her company.

A lot of her questions are invasive or inappropriate. For instance, she asked her teacher what she did on Sunday! The teacher said, “Oh, I just did some errands.” My daughter asked, “What kind of errands? What did you buy? What store? Why did you go to that store?”

I’ve already told her that she needs to stop asking so many questions, but she continues anyway.

In addition to those kinds of questions, my daughter also asks questions she already knows the answer to. For instance, every Monday night I make pizza for the family, but every Monday after school, she’ll ask if we’re having pizza. She knows I make the dough but she’ll follow up with, “Are you going to make the dough?” and so on. I’ve asked her to stop asking questions she already knows the answer to, but she says she really needs to ask them and she gets really upset if I try to stop answering. Can you suggest how I can help her?

A:

The first step is assessment. A child may ask a plethora of questions because she’s extremely bright and curious. Or she may be extremely anxious and is seeking reassurance. Or she may be locked in a loop that she can’t escape because OCD has a grip on her brain. Or she may be attempting to engage socially while lacking the appropriate skills to do so.

Let’s look at these underlying reasons a little more closely.

If the “culprit” is personality or brain style (i.e., she’s inquisitive by nature), then she should be able to fairly easily break her questioning habit. You would explain to her that people don’t enjoy answering so many questions and you would instruct her to follow a simple rule like “no more than two questions per half hour per person.” You could encourage compliance with positive feedback and even rewards. If that doesn’t stop the questioning habit, you could switch to using negative consequences for asking excessive questions. Either way, the child would be able to understand that her behavior is unacceptable, inappropriate, and self-harming, and she would be able to reduce her excessive questioning with parental help.

However, when a child is asking because she needs to quell an anxious feeling, it will be much harder for her to stop the habit. Some kids are seeking reassurance and safety and will ask all sorts of questions — including questions about every angle and detail of a situation — in order to ease their fear. A child may want to know, for example, exactly what will happen at the orthodontist appointment, step by step, moment by moment. This sort of child may frequently have fears and her excessive questioning would be her way of trying to gain some control over threatening situations.

Still other kids may be asking questions because of a need for the right feeling or for reassurance. Obsessive-compulsive disorder may be driving these sorts of questions. The child asks questions she knows the answers to not because she needs an answer (she obviously doesn’t) but because she needs to be answered. There is a ritualistic component involved, a compulsion to ask. The child needs to ask; she won’t feel right until she gets the answers she’s craving. She appears to be agitated rather than interested. Telling such a child to stop asking won’t work; instead, censoring her can raise her anxiety and discomfort sky-high, sometimes leading to hysterical meltdowns. Professional treatment is particularly helpful for these sorts of questioners, helping them to identify and successfully modify their obsessive-compulsive tendencies.

Some kids ask questions in order to connect socially. They don’t realize that this strategy is alienating rather than bonding. Both ADHD kids and kids on the autism spectrum may not be able to read the distress signals of those they’re imposing their questions upon; they’re confused as to why people avoid their company. In this case, the questions are too numerous, too intrusive, too detailed or otherwise too annoying — but these kids can’t see it and can’t control it without some professional guidance.

Once you know what is driving your daughter’s excessive questioning, a therapist will be able to give you a protocol to follow so that you can help rewire your daughter’s questioning brain. You’ll learn how to deal with her questions at home, and how to support her outside the home. No matter why she is asking so many questions, you’ll be able to gently steer her in a better emotional and social direction.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 974)