My mom makes a good point about the incessant “why’s” that come from my daughter (2.5 years old) – its the perfect way for my toddler to hold up her end of the conversation. She doesn’t have enough words to have a smooth conversation with me but if she says “why”, I’ll keep talking.
So the good thing is that she loves to converse and loves the exchange–that’s why she asks ‘why’ to keep the dialogue going! (A toddler would make a great journalist!)
My mom’s advice is to try to answer her question or restate it in words she already knows–but try not to get locked into endless ‘whys.’ The trick is to answer the question (it may take a couple of ‘whys’) and then move the conversation forward with things that she understands and can continue to be a part of the conversation.
What do you think?
I think this is fairly sound reasoning. Children most likely learn more by continually practicing their conversational skills. If you don’t have much to work with, I can see ‘how’ as a simple and logical encouragement for continuing. I’m curious what Edith Ackermann she would say about this. http://linkedith.kaywa.com/ She is a child psychologist under Piaget.
I also wonder if these formative stages are where children get the ‘um’, ‘and’, ‘so’ bug that plagues most conversation. Here’s a related unverified article on filler conversation: http://wikibin.org/articles/co.....llers.html