In the fast-paced life with a toddler, adopting a deliberate approach towards another phase that can push your buttons and make you lose your temper becomes key in achieving the best long-term outcomes.
Here’s how to positively handle and answer all those countless “why” questions.
There are many development stages that a young child has to go through, some overlapping each other.
The “why” phase usually coincides with many different developmental stages, and even if it is not present in the official developmental milestones of a child, many toddlers experience it.
Parents can definitely handle the toddler’s “why” phase in a positive and nurturing way by following these seven tips:
- Understand the reason and the drive behind the question
- Practice answering a question with a guiding question
- Avoid ignoring questions
- Offer short and clear answers
- Follow up the “I don’t know” type of answers
- Try your best in keeping calm and pay attention at the tone of your voice
- Acknowledge when you are close to reach a limit and kindly redirect or postpone the questioning “session”
This article aims to empower parents by offering practical guidance on turning a draining and stressful developmental stage into a strong pillar in their relationship with their child.
When does the toddlers “Why” phase starts and how long it lasts?
Let’s start by acknowledging that even if there are no official statistics, usually, the toddler’s why phase begins around the age of two and generally lasts until three years, three years, and a half.
There are also numerous situations when it can persist until the young child turns four or five years.
How should parents handle all the why questions asked?

Is it just a case of surviving the why phase and wait for it to come to an end or would you prefer to make the most out of it, both for you and the child?
Many specialists recommendations offer short-term relief, yet what is most important is the long-term goal.
You can tackle the long term-effects and make the best out of the why stage by implementing the constructive and practical tips you will find bellow.
Understand the reason and the drive behind the question
Firstly, a two or three-year-old child has an intrinsic curiosity meant to help them discover and understand this vast, exciting, and scary world.
Their limited vocabulary impedes them in addressing more sensitive and specific questions.
Therefore, the main reason for a two-year-old asking countless, endless “why” questions lies in their developmental need to expand their vocabulary while discovering, learning, and understanding themselves and their environment.
There are also secondary reasons, such as finding and checking the parent’s limits and boundaries, which can be easily noticed when another “why” question comes before receiving an answer for the precedented one.
For the first situation, aim to offer simple and straightforward answers or answer with guiding questions.
In contrast, for the second reason, practice redirection responses or postpone the entire questioning session while always keeping your calm (find more details for all the tips below in the article).
Practice answering a question with a guiding question
In the adult world, practicing answering a question with another question could be seen as impolite and disrespectful, and a similar effect can also be observed on young children.
Although every parent’s motivation behind this practice is to guide the young toddler in discovering the power within and realise that he/she can find the answer by reasoning, this capacity just starts to develop at this young age.
Therefore, instead of answering “why does a… ” with “why do you think it does,” try guiding questions such as “ let’s see/let’s think…”, followed by leading suggestions.
For young children, it is helpful always to remember practicing the 10 seconds pause rule: for any question, task, wait 10 seconds before repeating the initial question or addressing another question.
As in the previous example, after “let’s see/let’s think…” make a pause of 10 seconds before adding any leading promptings, and you will be surprised by the answers that your child will bring on its own.
“Dinner is ready, it is time to wash our hands!”
“Why?”
“Let’s think…”
Pause (10 seconds)
“ When do we have to wash our hands?” or “ Are the paints/playdough/soil food for our tummy? ”
Pause (10 seconds)
If no answer has been given, even if it seems like answering a fundamental hygiene question for a million times, a practice that you usually model and reinforce at least before any mealtime, aim towards using a neutral tone and offer the same answer as usual :
“Because we always have to wash our hands before we eat.”
“Maybe, because our tummy does not like paints/playdough/soil.”
“They are not food for our tummy!”
“Eating with dirty hands can give us tummy aches!”
Avoid ignoring questions
As straight forward as mentioned in the heading, please discard completely the advice or even your likely reaction of ignoring your toddler’s questions, as overwhelming and energy-draining as it can become by going down in this rabbit hole of “why” questioning.
Ignoring the questions is a short-term action with an irreversible long-term impact.
Your toddler will stop asking for the moment by acknowledging that you’re no longer focused on him/her.
But, the message received is that his questions are not important. Your attention is limited and unreliable (it can drop out anytime without warning), and that this is an acceptable practice.
Instead, try implementing the strategies defined here(such as guiding, redirecting questions, or delaying altogether) while always offering an indication of your intentions and your reasons when suspending and rescheduling the answering session to a following time:
“I find your questions interesting and exciting, but Mommy/Daddy is tired/hungry/distressed right now, and for the moment is not able to answer appropriately. We have to stop, and continue in the morning/after dinner/after finishing this task .”
Of course, that in the beginning, your child will not stop instantly and will test your intentions, but by kindly and firmly repeating and following your limit, he/she will acknowledge and understand it.
This way, you are conveying a considerate message, teaching valuable methods in dealing, communicating, and implementing limits and boundaries while nurturing and respecting your toddler’s need of discovering, learning and testing.
Offer short and clear answers
As mentioned earlier, your young child’s vocabulary and attention span are limited.
Using too many new words or long, explanatory answers can increase the number of “why” questions.
This is caused by the child’s natural need of repetition and understanding of new words, and by his frustration of not being able to follow the flux of information.
Therefore, considering your child’s developmental stage, aim to offer short and precise answers, easier to follow and understand.
Instead of offering long, descriptive, and explanatory answers, try using guiding questions towards the extra information you intend to provide.
“Why do we have to flush the toilet?
To keep our house clean! / To make space for the next use! / To remove the smell”
“Why do we have to open the windows?
To let clean and fresh air in! / To ventilate the room / So we can breath fresh air / So we can sleep better”
Follow up the “I don’t know” type of answers
Even if the “Mommy and Daddy knows everything “ used to be common practice, it is far from being the most helpful or truthful scenario.
As flattering as it can feel, being seen by your child as a guru, promoting this false illusion of you having all the answers is both misleading and unsustainable in the long run.
This type of approach promotes at least two disadvantageous outcomes:
- Since you seem to have all the answers, you become your child’s primary solving choice.
- Asking you is the easiest and fastest way.
- Your child will begin choosing to ask you rather than attempting to find the answer by himself/herself.
- “Why” questions can increase in frequency, and this period will be extended. As receiving a straightforward answer to their questions has become automatic and habit-like.
Instead of trying to manufacture a weak answer, it is sometimes better to embrace the “I don’t know” answer.
By fostering a follow-up practice, you are encouraging the development of a much healthier behaviour for these type of situations:
“What an interesting question, but I don’t know/have the answer.
Let’s write this one down and look for it together now/later on/after finishing this task and so on.”
Always try to remember to come back and research the answer, or if it happens not to keep your word, acknowledge it and postpone it to a later time.
Otherwise, using the “I don’t know” approach without practicing a complete follow-up technique will promote a detrimental unwillingness to solve problems and weaken your words.
Try your best in keeping calm and pay attention at the tone of your voice
Being aware of your own emotions and behaviour has often been proven to be one of the most challenging parenting tasks!
There are multiple reasons behind that overwhelming feeling, the raised/shouted voice, or that shortness of temper, majority of them are far from even being related to your child’s current “hundred’s WHY” question.
This article does not aim to preach the development of a perfectly balanced parent type but to bring awareness of how pivotal it is always to be present and conscious of oneself so that parents can be the best version in front of their children.
ONLY YOU can model and cultivate that desired behaviour in them.
It is widely known that toddlers can sense our emotions faster and better than adults do, thanks to their high level of living in the present, without grieving the past and worrying for the future.
This intuiting capacity does not also imply an ability of understanding or empathising with what they sense, but more to imitate the coping mechanism.
So, after a long and stressful day either working outside or at home, the frustration of needing to answer the million time “Why are strawberries red? Why do we have to cook? Why does a dog barks? Why do we need to flush the toilet after using it?”, can easily trigger that undesired raised voice and the unpleasant feeling of losing your temper.
It is not relevant to continue answering while trying to control your tone and attitude.
What makes the best is to become aware of being at the edge and using other coping tips to give you the necessary time to regain self-control, such as redirection or postponing, which are detailed below.
This attitude mirrors a vital lesson, that even though we cannot control our emotions, we can control our reactions!
Acknowledge when you are close to reach a limit and kindly redirect or postpone the questioning “session”
Since we highlighted how important it is to become aware of your own emotions and reactions, let’s look at some respectful, kind, and firm strategies for coming out of the situation.
These strategies have already been mentioned several times in the article: redirection and postponing methods.
REDIRECTION
As the word suggests, this approach implies shifting the child attention towards other activities, subjects, toys, memories, either by using suggestive questions or kind propositions:
“What do you think about colouring/painting a bowl of strawberries? You can choose what colour the strawberries will have!”
“Do you remember when we went shopping? What colours did the apples or broccoli had?”
“It is almost dinner time, would you like helping me take out the vegetables and prepare it?”
“Let’s check in our animal book (encyclopedia) facts about dogs/cats/animal the question was about!”
Changing the location from one room to another is enough to switch the child’s focus and attention from just asking to be engaged in providing or even experimenting with an answer actively.
This tactic will not only benefit your toddler by stimulating an engagement in discovering their inner power but will also benefit you “escaping” without hurting yourself or your child.
POSTPONING
Compared to the redirection method, this is a straightforward approach, where you are respectfully communicating your present feelings and intentions to your child.
Again, it is essential to pay attention to your tone, so you deliver the right message.
Contrarily to the mainstream belief, to send and promote a kind and firm message, there is no need to raise/change the tone of your voice, but to keep it as natural as possible.
Also, the level you are speaking from to your child is highly influential. You are aiming to come to their level so that you can establish straight eye contact.
It is easier to fall into the trap of “tasks in urgent need to be done” and talk with your toddler while rushing to fold up clothes, tidying up, cleaning the bathrooms, washing dishes, cooking, checking emails, etc.
There is no coincidence that this “ why” questioning session also happens at this same time. Apart from the need to discover, there is also the toddler’s need for attention, your uninterrupted kind of attention.
Therefore, pause what you are doing, come to your child’s level, using your natural, standard voice, and make eye contact:
“ These are very interesting and important questions. I am tired/busy doing this, so I choose to answer them in the morning/after I finish/ after eating.”
Since young children are geniuses in finding ways to check and shake the limits and boundaries you are trying to instill, aim in following and supporting your saying.
“I understand that you are curious and impatient. You can also try to find the answer yourself in the meantime!”
By tackling this developmental stage with awareness and directed intentions, you will convert it into another strong pillar in building a solid relationship with your child.
Although appearance seems to be like a knowledge builder phase, your reactions are the ones modelling and shaping the equation’s emotional side.
By shifting your attention from controlling your child’s behaviour towards your own reactions, you are supporting the development of emotional intelligence in your toddler.
You will model awareness, self-control, and empathy. Qualities that are found in extraordinary people and most important fulfilled ones.