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Young children repeat the same thing over and over and over (like the same joke, the same observation, reading the same book, playing the same game...) because they are strengthening the connections in their brain that are learning from that repeated experience!

In addition to whatever they're learning from the experience they're repeating, they also learn valuable information about how to predict what's going to happen next, and how changing small variables affects the outcome.

Here are some examples of what a toddler or preschooler might be picking up from a repeated experience:

From your point of view, you're just reading the same book over and over and over -- but from their point of view, they spend 10 days thinking about the story of the book, then 8 days noticing small details in the illustrations of the background of the book, then 5 days thinking about the way that your voice sounds when you read dialogue versus when you're reading narration, then 10 days thinking about the emotions throughout the book, then 5 days thinking about the colors used in the pictures and how dark colors correlate with the "sad" pages and light colors correlate with the "happy" pages...

From your point of view, your preschooler just keeps telling the same knock-knock joke (that they don't even understand) over and over -- but from their point of view, they're spending time understanding the social reciprocity -- the back-and-forth -- of how a joke works, and then they're exploring who in their life does and does not know how to respond to a knock-knock joke (peers might not have been exposed to it, but adults probably have), and then they're chasing the delightful rush of telling someone something that makes them laugh and delight in you a little bit, and then they're expanding and exploring what words can be swapped in and out of a knock-knock joke to make people laugh even more...

From your point of view, your child gravitates toward running water in the sink as often as possible. From their point of view, one time they might be thinking about the feeling of the water running over their hands, and another time they might be listening to the sound of the water running, and another time they might be watching the visual of the water and how it cascades over any object it touches, and then they might be thinking about the temperature of the water, and then they might be thinking about the results of touching the water -- how now their hands are cold and wet and the cause-and-effect that went into that...and then they might start branching out in their experiments with how the water runs over spoons or cups in the sink, or how the water drips slowly or gushes depending on how they've opened the faucet...

There are a million million things to learn from repeated experiences. Especially when you are very young!

[Image description: An image showing what neuronal connections look like, represented by a large gray blob-like structure with many synapses -- which are thin grey branches going in all directions, connecting to other neurons. There are some of them lit up orange/white to indicate that a neuronal impulse (a thought, an action) is moving through that neuron at that time. The whole effect is a spiderweb of connections going every which way.
Words are written over the image. The words read, "Why do preschoolers love repetition? Each of their brain cells can have 15,000 connections (or synapses) to other brain cells. How do they strengthen those neural pathways? By using them."
The image was made by Preschool Powol Packets - Preschool Activities & Ideas End description.]

Once you've "taught" children how to use something (even accidentally), I notice these things happen:

-they start to believe there is a "right" way to play with the toy
-they fall into a pattern of only wanting to play with it the "right" way
-if the "right" way is tricky, they may want you to do it over and over while they just watch
-only if the toy sticks around for ages, and if you get lucky, will they be as likely to begin to freely experiment with the toy again and learn new ways to use it
-they may instead just get bored of the toy after doing it the "right" way a few times.

Remember, you can always move from less interference to more interference. After they've experimented for a long while, you can always jump in and show them some other way to play. But you can't take back modeling once you've provided it.

Many of us jump in immediately because we don't know how else to interact with our child as they play, which is why I provide these questions. If your first instinct is to want to start directing the play, pause and take a breath. Ask yourself questions instead of asking your child questions. What do you observe? What rules are they following? See if you can understand their mind, get into their logic! What trials are they trying? Why has this caught their interest?

[Image description: A close-up of a child's hands playing with an abacus is the faded image in the background. Over top of it are words that read, "When you feel yourself wanting to tell a child the 'right' way to use a toy, pause. See if, first, you can quietly observe & understand what they are exploring. What internal rules are they following? what trial-and-errors are they conducting? What are they learning -- without needing to be 'taught'?"

It also has my watermark on it, . End description.]

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Behavioral Consultation | Behavioral Consultation Services | Indiana Behavioral management consultation within the home and childcare facilities. Family and staff training on behavioral management.