Again! Again! Here's why toddlers love to do things on repeat

Here's why toddlers love to do things on repeat Enlarge this image electravk/Getty Images electravk/Getty Images My son was about four months old when I first noticed that he liked to spend a long time doing the same thing over and over again. As annoying as these repeated tasks might be to us parents, repetition "has many functions" in childhood development, says Rebecca Parlakian, senior director of programs at the nonprofit Zero To Three, which focuses on early childhood development. Sponsor Message "What's special about those first few years, it's taking advantage of this immense plasticity because of this overabundance of synapses," he says. And over the course of childhood and even adolescence, that sets up the entire circuitry of the brain, with each region and circuit specializing in their various roles.. "We have this phrase in our culture – practice makes perfect, but when it comes to brain development, practice makes permanent," says Parlakian. "Think about a really common scenario, like a child, a baby even, throwing food off the highchair, and the dog, you know, leaps on it and eats it up," says Parlakian.