Why do kids like to watch a movie over and over again?

Have you ever wondered why children like to watch a movie or video again?

According to Scienceabc, children like to watch the same movie many times because it is the only way they can understand what's happening in the movie . Repetition is also considered the best way for children to learn and practice new skills. Moreover, children like to predict what will happen next and then see what they expect to be confirmed.

The author of an article shared his experience of observing a 3-year-old boy on a short vacation at his acquaintance's home. It was a hyperactive boy and rarely sat in a place for a few minutes. Except when his father opened Kung Fu Panda on TV. The boy doesn't really sit still while watching the movie, but he's really attracted to it. Noting that this was repeated many times later when he watched the movie again.

Picture 1 of Why do kids like to watch a movie over and over again?
Children watch over and over again because it's the only way they can understand what's going on in the movie.

The author said the boy at least reviewed the film four times during his stay. Every time he watched, he smiled comfortably and never seemed bored. The author was really fascinated by the boy's love for the film and even teased the boy's father: "Your son is definitely like Kung Fu Panda!".

It seems that this is a common phenomenon for most children. Children tend to like to see similar things, whether it's a movie or a television show many times without any concern.

There are several hypotheses set out to explain this behavior in children.

Children learn better when there is repetition

Like adults , children learn best by repeating and this is not limited to watching movies . Children tend to repeat almost everything they see / hear to better understand.

A study published in 2011 confirmed that children learn more when something is read to them many times. Head of this study is psychologist Dr. Jessica Horst of the University of Sussex. Several experiments in the study were conducted with more than a dozen 3-year-old children.

Picture 2 of Why do kids like to watch a movie over and over again?
Children tend to repeat almost everything they see / hear to better understand.

The study concludes that if you read the same story to your child many times, your child will learn more than read different stories each time. Moreover, repeating such stories can improve children's vocabulary.

Even for adults, repetition is also an enhancement tool in learning. However, the brains of younger children therefore require more repetitions for them to learn.

The joy of children when they see their predictions is confirmed

People generally predict everything and feel excited when their predictions are confirmed; The same is true for toddlers. Wherever they go and whatever they do, there's always a huge bombardment of new information from every direction that their brains still can't handle. Therefore, it is quite understandable that most of the world around them is unpredictable. Fortunately, when they watch the same movie many times, they voluntarily predict that in a special event will happen. And when the movie content confirms their prediction to be accurate, they feel happy.

In a way, you can say that watching the same movie / TV show or re-reading the same book helps your child develop the ability to think about what will happen next and then feel happy because I guessed something right.

Children do not understand a movie in the first view

Movies are a myriad of things: many characters, many conversations, emotions, reactions to situations . With all this happening on the screen at the same time, kids are easy to miss. things. Needless to say, this hinders their common understanding of the film.

Picture 3 of Why do kids like to watch a movie over and over again?
Watching a movie, reading a story many times is simply a child's learning process.

Therefore, whenever watching a specific movie, they always collect new content and absorb some new details from there.

Even adults when watching a movie many times, they can still get what they missed in previous views.

There are several other subjective hypotheses for this phenomenon, such as the fact that children do not have a strong sense of time as adults. They don't really experience the thought: "I've seen this before and move on to another".

Some people even say that watching the same film helps children better understand emotions with cause and effect consequences, for example "panda did this activity and then something happened to it". This helps children understand their actions and introduces them to ideas about consequences. So nothing is bad when your child wants to watch the same movie or hear the same story many times. It is simply their learning process.