My kids did that, so it's not really a 'step' thing, it's a kid thing. It's selective hearing or a trained response. They may start doing it because they really don't hear you or aren't comprehending what you say but if it becomes a habit, they can continue to do it after they develop the comprehension skills. My son is the worse and he's now 22 years old. He will say 'huh?' and then answer me or do what is asked. It's funny because he's in the Army now and I wonder if they can break him from doing that??? We'll see.

Another thing that bothers me is my SD will overhear something and then ask about it. (ie. we are in the car & I am talking on my phone to DH. I tell him I am stopping at his parent's house for something. I get off the phone and SD says "are we stopping at gramma & papa's?" when she JUST heard me tell DH we are.) If you know the answer, why ask the question? Drives me nuts.

I reckon it's become a habit, or maybe it's to gain a bit more time to think of a response.. who knows. Definetely not a step thing as I have noticed my own dad does it too!!
Yup, and I only noticed it after I started noticing it with the kids..bu I didn't say to my dad that I will only tell him something once, hihihi.. He'll reply anyway if I don't repeat it again, just like your son.

As for repeating things you just said; SD10 is really bad with that too. If somebody tells a story (anybody) SD10 will never just reply to it. She will pretty much try and get you to tell her again, while asking a million questions..and then she will repeat the same story back to you, just to make sure that she got it right this time. That's 3 times!!

But oh well, peanuts really in the greater scheme of things:-))

It's not stepkids...it's kids in general.

Agreed - kids in general. My dd does the same thing. Drives me crazy. Finally one day I decided enough was enough, and now I just ask her right back...

me: blah blah blah
dd: what did you say?
me: what do you think I just said?
dd: blah blah blah
me: that's right!!!

It's really repetitive the first few times, but it's really started to get better now.

liesbeth,

It's not SDs who do that, it's ME! For me though there's no mystery as to why. Being off in my own little world of lala land is completely normal for me--I'm ADD! Right after I say "what?" though, it's as if the words had a delayed reaction, and register a split second later, and before the person has a chance to repeat themselves, I do it for them, usually repeating what they said back verbatim.

And asking a question only to "forget" the answer to ask it again 10 minutes later? Oh yeah! I not only do that as well, but usually multiple times.

I'm honestly working on it though.

it is not stepkids, it is just kids, in fact of any age. DD is 21 and still does that. she listens to music, types, is on the phone, plays a game and does homework at the same time. of course evrything you say follows with: "huh? what?''

actually it is not just kids, people in general. I have this habbit of not fully ilistening. then Dd used to do this. she talks talks, i don't pay attention then she says somehting outrageous to see if i am listening. her favorite was: Mom, i am pregnant. haha that got my attention every time.

Hahaha, I'm guilty of that too FD. My skids sometimes talk just to talk, and it's hard to listen to that for too long. I sometimes cut them short and sometimes I just miss half of it. Especially when they want to talk me through some movie they saw, it's just not that interesting if you haven't seen it yourself..Hihi funny

Come to think of it; my MIL does that too. Except with her I think it's a bit rude sometimes. Say MIL and FIL come around for coffee and the 4 of us are having a conversation. MIL will always try and get me out of that and start a conversation with just the two of us (so the 'girls' and the 'guys' can both talk about something different). Not really my cup of tea, but I usually go along with it, even though it's hard to concentrate with 4 people at one table and 2 conversations. So I do my best to just hear her and respond to her. Only to find that in the middle of my reply to her, she suddenly starts laughing with the 'guys' because she switched back to the other conversation herself!! Ok no worries mate, I didn't think it was such an interesting topic either!
Anyway, let's not get stuck into my MIL......

OMG...is this about my BF? He does this constantly and it is so annoying! Granted, English is not his first language, but that excuse only works for so long... =-)