By Jane Sonnenschein
December 23, 2025 · Revised June 6, 2026

Many parents have probably experienced this: two adults are talking, and a child suddenly jumps in with something she wants to say.

From an adult’s point of view, it can seem very simple. The first thought is often: Why is this child so rude?

That used to happen in our family too.

My daughter interrupted people at home, and she did it at school as well. Her teacher even spoke to us about it. We took the problem seriously and criticized her quite firmly. Her father in particular kept telling her, in a very serious tone, “This is very, very rude.”

She felt quite hurt by that. But to be honest, at the time I did not think there was much to argue about. If someone is speaking and you suddenly interrupt, that is wrong. Most of us were raised with the same rule: letting someone finish what they are saying is a basic form of respect.

Only later did I begin to realize that things might not be quite so simple.

Because one day, I noticed that I also interrupt people quite often.

Something I Discovered About Myself That Was Not Easy to Admit

It was slightly embarrassing, because when I criticized my daughter for interrupting, I had never thought to include myself in the picture.

When I am talking with someone, this often happens to me too. The other person reaches a certain point, and a thought suddenly appears in my mind. Or something they say immediately reminds me of something else, and I find it very difficult not to jump in.

Sometimes I want to add something. Sometimes I want to take the conversation in another direction. Sometimes I simply interrupt before the other person has finished expressing their thought.

Some people understand this way of talking. They see it as quick thinking and an active mind, and they are happy to let the conversation move in different directions. Other people clearly dislike it. They feel that this way of speaking is disrespectful, or that the conversation has been taken away from them.

For a long time, I never seriously connected these two things.

When my daughter interrupted, my first reaction was, “That is rude.” When I interrupted, I explained it by saying, “I just talk too much,” “My mind goes in too many directions,” or “I get excited and jump in.”

Later, I realized that this points to a very common problem: we often use a simple moral label to explain behavior that is much more complicated.

A child may interrupt because she has not yet learned good manners. But there is another possibility. Her brain may simply work this way: thoughts come very quickly, and she has not yet learned how to place a pause between having a thought and saying it aloud.

The Same Situation Works in Three Completely Different Ways in Our Family

1. My Daughter: When a Thought Appears, Not Saying It Feels Unbearable

I once asked her, “When you interrupt, is it because something suddenly comes into your mind and you want to say it?”

She answered, “Yes. If I don’t say it, it feels really uncomfortable. I can’t stop myself.”

That answer stayed with me.

Before then, I had mainly seen the outward behavior: she was interrupting someone. I had not really looked at what was happening inside her.

She was not deliberately trying to take over the conversation, and she was not trying to disrespect anyone. A thought had suddenly appeared, and once it was there, she found it very difficult to hold it back.

For a child, this is not especially surprising. A child’s brain is still developing. Impulse control, reading the situation, waiting, and judging the right moment to speak do not suddenly become mature just because an adult has explained the rules.

An adult may be able to think, I won’t say this now. I’ll wait until later. A child may still be at the stage of thinking, I have thought of it now, so I need to say it now.

When we only see the interruption, it is easy to call it rude. But when we look a little deeper, we may realize that what she needs to learn is not simply how to be quiet. She needs to learn how to hold on to a thought for a while without immediately saying it.

2. Me: I Think by Talking

When I looked at myself, I saw another way a mind can work.

I eventually realized that I am not someone who thinks everything through first and then slowly explains the finished result. Very often, I complete my thinking while I am speaking.

As I talk about one subject, another thought appears. Halfway through explaining an idea, I suddenly see it from another angle.

For me, speaking is not only a way of expressing a finished thought. Speaking is part of the thinking itself.

So when I interrupt, it is often not because I do not care about the other person. It is because a thought has just appeared, and I instinctively feel that if I do not say it immediately, it will disappear.

This happens especially when I am very interested in the subject, or when something the other person says creates a new connection in my mind.

That does not mean interrupting is right. I simply began to understand that my judgment of myself had been too rough for many years. I had only looked at whether my way of speaking was appropriate. I had not noticed that I use speech to organize my thoughts.

Once I looked at my daughter from this angle, it became harder to silence her with the single label of “rude.”

3. Her Father: Just as Many Thoughts, but a Stronger Brake System

Interestingly, her father noticed the difference too.

He once said to me, “I also have a lot going on in my mind, but I judge whether this is the right moment to say it.”

I remember that sentence very clearly.

It is not that he has fewer thoughts, or that his mind never moves in different directions. His internal “brake system” is simply more mature.

Before speaking, he is able to ask himself: Is this a simple question with a clear answer, or is it a subject that needs a longer discussion? Is this the right situation? Has the other person finished speaking? If I say this now, will I interrupt what they were trying to express?

He does not lack things to say. He simply chooses which thoughts to say aloud and when to say them.

That is an important ability. It is more than basic politeness. It means there is another step between thought and speech:

I want to say this, but I do not have to say it now. I have a thought, but I can wait. I believe this is important, but I also need to consider the relationship and the situation.

When I look at the three of us this way, I can see that we may all have minds full of thoughts, but those thoughts come out very differently.

My daughter struggles to hold them back once they appear. I often think by speaking. Her father is able to place a fairly steady brake between thought and expression.

The Problem Was Not Simply Who Was Right or Wrong. We Were Using the Wrong Standard

I used to make a very common mistake: I applied the same standard of politeness to several very different ways of thinking.

Of course, politeness matters. A child cannot interrupt whenever she wants simply because she has something to say. Adults cannot ignore other people’s feelings just because their own minds are active.

But if we stop at “interrupting is rude,” we may miss the part that truly needs to be understood and practiced.

A child may feel deeply misunderstood because she was not trying to offend anyone, yet she is repeatedly told that she is rude. For many years, I also wondered whether I was too scattered, too immature, or simply unable to control myself.

Meanwhile, the skill we actually needed to learn—how to manage the timing of our speech—was hidden beneath a simple criticism.

I gradually began to understand that when we teach a child, it is not enough to say, “What you are doing is wrong.”

The child may already know that it is wrong and still be unable to stop.

What she needs is not to hear “Don’t interrupt” again and again. She needs help recognizing what is happening:

My thoughts are coming too quickly. I can write this down first. I can wait until the other person has finished. I am allowed to express myself, but I need to learn how to choose the right moment.

That difference matters.

One approach suppresses. The other teaches regulation.

Suppression tells a child, “Your thoughts are not welcome.”

Regulation tells her, “Your thoughts are allowed to be here. We just need to learn together how to bring them out at a better moment.”

If Your Child Often Interrupts, Try Looking at It From Another Angle

If a child interrupts all the time, we cannot simply say that it does not matter. Conversation has rules, and learning to wait while another person is speaking is something a child gradually needs to learn.

But before teaching a child how to speak, perhaps we should first look one step further: why is it so hard for her not to speak?

Some children are not rude. Their thoughts simply move very quickly.

They may not be trying to disrespect anyone. They may not yet have developed a steady ability to wait. They may not be deliberately taking over the conversation. They may simply not know that a thought can stay in their mind for a while, or that it can be written down and saved for later.

For these children, specific methods may be more useful than repeated criticism.

We can tell them that when a thought suddenly appears, they can quietly say to themselves, Wait.

If they are afraid of forgetting, they can lightly touch a finger to their hand or arm as a private reminder to wait until the other person has finished. At home, they might keep a small notebook nearby and write down one or two keywords.

Then, once the other person has finished, we can say, “Now it’s your turn. What did you want to say?”

These methods may seem small, but the message behind them is different.

They do not tell the child, “Do not have so many thoughts.”

They teach her what she can do with a thought once it arrives, and how that thought can live alongside the needs of other people.

This is also part of growing up.

A child needs to learn not only how to express herself, but also how to notice others. She needs to learn not only how to say what is in her mind, but also when to say it, how to say it, and how much to say.

One Last Thought

Over time, we began to see that our daughter’s habit of interrupting was not necessarily the beginning of a bad habit.

Sometimes it also showed that her mind was active, that she made connections quickly, and that she felt strongly involved in what was happening around her.

What matters is not shutting down that liveliness, nor simply allowing her to say whatever she wants whenever she wants. What matters is helping her find a path between the two.

She can keep her ideas while learning to respect other people’s need to speak. She does not need to make herself smaller, but she also cannot leave no room for anyone else.

Perhaps this is what we truly need to teach children: not how to become permanently quiet and never disturb anyone, but how to move through the world while protecting their desire to express themselves and still caring about how other people feel.

This essay is also available in other languages:

Chinese version: 为什么有些孩子总爱插话？也许不是没礼貌，而是大脑的“运作方式”不一样

German version: Warum reden manche Kinder ständig dazwischen? Vielleicht liegt es nicht an fehlender Höflichkeit, sondern daran, wie ihr Gehirn arbeitet