If you have a child, you already have experienced the fact that children want to read a book, hear a story, or watch a movie over and over and over and over again. Until you are going crazy and want to hide it. But why? Not why you want to hide it! I already know that answer. But why do children want repetition?
We expose our children to a variety of experiences – things to see, hear, taste, touch, smell, people, new ways of moving or thinking – and new neural connections are formed in their brains. But not all of these connections will remain intact. It is only through repetition (or “practice”) that the neural connections become strengthened enough for skills to form.
Children love repetition because that’s the way they learn and remember new information best. And once your child has learned something, repetition is enjoyed because now your child can anticipate what comes next. How much more actively does your child participate in story time when she knows the ending to all the sentences? And how hilarious and clever does he think he is when he “catches” you substituting the wrong
words in a favorite book?
When she can now sing along to a piece of music, repeat finger plays or recite chants, she can move on from “remembering” the words and tune, to practice using her voice and vocabulary words, and even creating something new – like extra words to the song.
It is sheer joy for a child to know they have mastered something, whether it’s building a block tower or putting together a puzzle. The child will repeat that skill to in order to continue to feel that joy of mastery. For instance, once a child has learned to walk, there is usually this period of time when all they want to do is walk and walk. At our house, sometimes it was hard to get a new walker to stop and sit still long enough to eat at lunchtime, so we put a little plate of finger foods on a low table that he could graze on as he circled through the kitchen again and again and again. We called this “dine and dash”.
When something is successfully learned, (the neural connections are firmly established), a child receives a great deal of satisfaction, and he thinks it is “fun”. He is then driven to learn skills or information that is more complex than before.
So, I hope that you’ll remember that you are helping your child’s brain to grow, when playing Track #9 on your Kindermusik CD for the 7,219th time in a row!
-posted by Miss Analiisa, who has no answer for why her pre-adolescent child needs instructions to be repeated over and over again in order to get him to complete a task, when he is perfectly capable of remembering them the first time!
When I took Nathan for his one month old check, I asked his doctor just when I should begin reading to him. He said, “Now.” Being a typical first-time-have-to-do-all-things-right-mommy, for 3 years (until his next sibling arrived and blew our carefully arranged schedule out of the water), I read to him twice a day for 20 minutes each time.
MY FATHER’S DRAGON is a marvelous fantasy that has enchanted children for many years. Children are drawn into the story as Elmer Elevator pulls from his knapsack one ingenious idea after another in order to outwit the wild beasts. The clever black and white illustrations in this 1949 Newbery Honor Book are entertaining and fun. There are three books in this series.
THE BOXCAR CHILDREN are four orphaned brothers and sisters who suddenly appear in a small town. No one knows who these young wanderers are or where they have come from. The children make a home for themselves in an abandoned red boxcar they discover in the woods. The four ambitious and resourceful, plucky children make a happy life themselves–until Violet gets too sick for her brothers and sister to care for her. This book will delight any child who has fantasized about being on his or her own and overcoming every obstacle.
MRS. PIGGLE WIGGLE has been wildly popular with children and adults for over 50 years. Children adore her because she understands them–and because her upside-down house is always filled with the smell of freshly baked cookies, and her backyard with buried treasure. Grownups love her because her magical common sense solutions to children’s problems succeed when their own cajoling and yelling don’t.
Tonight I looked up at the stars with a new sense of awe and wonder. Stars have always inspired music, poetry, and childhood wishes. They provide a natural compass pointing to North at night and East and West during the day. Our most favorite star, the sun, gives us life sustaining heat and light. We could not live without stars!
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