How to Get Your Child to Stop Repeating

Very recently my son picked up this habit of repeating. It has gotten out of hand and it is past the point of annoying. My husband is the more patient of the two of us and even he is bothered by it. That is how I know it has gotten out of hand. Just yesterday we were talking to him about it and we asked him why he kept repeating. His response was "I don't know. I don't know." He literally answered the question and then repeated it.

It started out with the basic mommy, mommy, mommy if I didn't answer him right away, but now he does it all the time. My son is a very sweet, well-behaved boy so not being able to break this habit is just driving me insane. So tonight I decided to do some searching in hopes of finding an answer to our problem. I can't say that I found the answer to our problem, but if anyone else out there is dealing with this maybe it will help you out as well.

On one online forum where people give advice to other people someone mentioned not getting enough attention. At first I thought that was just plain crazy. My son is in school all day and then is given attention from the time he's home until he goes to bed. However, someone mentioned that what might seem adequate to an adult might not be adequate for a child. I never thought about it like that. I am pretty busy, but I always make time for my kids, but maybe I'm not doing enough. This will be the first thing that I change to see if he decreases his repeating at all.

As I did more searching I came across a website called http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/ that talked about a disorder called Sensory-Processing-Disorder. If you look at the website they give you a list of things to consider when diagnosing your child. A few of them hit home with me. Those things were - Why they will only eat macaroni cheese and pizza, why they will only wear certain clothes or have to have the tags cut out of their shirts, why they won't put their hands in anything messy. Now, I realize this is only three things out of the ten they have listed but is it enough? How do you know?

So here I sit wondering where we go from here. I suppose I'll start by giving more focused attention and seeing if that helps at all. If not, then we might have to look into something more. I'm sure many people reading this are wondering if repeating is really that big of a deal. Yes, it is. When it's constant all day and night it gets hard to listen to and when I can't just redirect him something just isn't right. If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them!