It’s a familiar feeling for many parents. No matter what you suggest, your pre-schooler just wants to watch that episode of Bluey again, never mind that it’s just finished playing. And at bedtime, it has to be a book you’ve read frequently enough to have developed a repertoire of specific voices for every character.
These deep and repetitive interests in a TV episode, game or topic may be frustrating to parents who just want to watch something different. But this repetition actually has great benefits for children’s learning and wellbeing.
One reason for this is what we can call the “input effect”. This isn’t a new concept in cognitive science.
Think of the brain as an organ doing its best to figure out what is normal in our lives – what’s part of a regular pattern and what isn’t. Researchers have discovered a phenomenon known as “statistical learning”. According to this idea, children are very sensitive to the occurrence of regularities and patterns in their lives.
Interestingly, babies are particularly adept at........