Why your child wants to read the same story over and over again and how fairy tales help them understand the world
Have you ever wondered why your child can listen to the same story every single night for three weeks and then look at you, with complete sincerity, and ask for it again?
You are sitting there thinking, surely there are other books in this house. There are, in fact, approximately 147 other books in this house. But apparently The Gruffalo is the one we are emotionally committed to....
There is a reason your child loves reading the same book again and again
Humans have been telling stories for thousands of years. Long before we had books, we had stories. We used them to pass down what we knew about the world, to remember our ancestors, to explain things we could not yet explain, and to teach the next generation how to navigate the very complicated business of being human.
Storytelling is one of our oldest ways of making sense of experience.
Fairy tales grew out of these storytelling traditions. The Brothers Grimm collected and edited tales from oral and literary sources, helping preserve stories that had been circulating for generations, while Hans Christian Andersen created many of his own literary fairy tales alongside stories influenced by folklore.
And underneath all the witches, wolves, enchanted forests and impossibly unfortunate princesses, there are often very human problems.
Bruno Bettelheim explored this idea in The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. His argument was that fairy tales can give children a symbolic language for experiences that are otherwise enormous and difficult to understand: fear, jealousy, separation, rivalry, helplessness, growing up and eventually finding your own place in the world.
Take Cinderella. A child does not need to understand social hierarchy or family dynamics to recognise the feeling of being overlooked, treated unfairly or wondering whether anyone will notice them. The story gives that experience somewhere to go, and then gives the child a world in which circumstances can change.
Or The Little Mermaid. Beneath the mermaids and sea witches is a story about longing, identity and the enormous desire to belong to a world that feels just out of reach. She wants to become part of something different, and the story explores what can happen when we are willing to give up too much of ourselves in pursuit of that belonging.
That doesn't mean every child is sitting there thinking, Ah yes, today I shall process my individuation through Hans Christian Andersen.
They aren't.
They are listening to a story.
And that is precisely the point.
Children do not need us to explain every meaning hidden inside a book.
They absorb stories through their own developmental lens, returning to the parts that speak to whatever they are working through at that particular moment. Bettelheim's central idea was that the child finds their own meaning in the story rather than having the adult hand them a lesson.
Which brings us back to the endless requests for the same book.
Repetition gives children something adults often underestimate: predictability.
They know what happens next. They know when the scary bit is coming. They know how the story ends. And because they already know the structure, they can pay attention to something they missed yesterday, notice a new word, understand a character a little differently or simply enjoy the pleasure of knowing what comes next.
Research on early literacy supports the importance of this kind of repetition.
Young children are particularly good at noticing patterns in stories and songs, and repeated elements allow them to anticipate and participate, while repeated reading supports language development and vocabulary.
There is, however, something I want you to keep in mind when choosing books for very young children.
A six-month-old is still building their mental map of the world.
For babies and young toddlers, books are not just entertainment. They are one of the ways we give names to the things they are beginning to notice: hands, feet, dogs, buses, food, bath time, going to bed, people, emotions, movement, sounds and all the wonderfully mundane things that make up their little universe.
In these early years, avoid fantasy-filled books with illustrations of unicorns and flying elephants - they do not give your child an understanding of how the world works.
Instead, go for books with real photographs or recognisable illustrations - they are particularly useful because they help children connect the picture and the word with the actual object or experience they encounter in everyday life.
Research and early-literacy guidance emphasise these connections between books, language and children's real-world experiences.
As children grow, their capacity for symbolic thinking and imagination grows with them, and their books can grow too. There is plenty of room for dragons, talking animals, fairy godmothers and witches who apparently have nothing better to do with their time than interfere in other people's marriages...
But in the first years, I am much more interested in giving a child a rich vocabulary for the world they are actually living in.
So if you have a baby at home, I have put together my recommended books for the first year of life, with books that build vocabulary, connect with your baby's real experiences and give you beautiful opportunities to talk, point, cuddle and explore together (download it here ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️).
And when your toddler asks you to read the same one for the 23rd time tonight?
You might still be bored.
They probably aren't.
For your older, more active little ones, from around 1.5 to 6 years, there is another lovely way to bring stories to life.
Our Ballet Storytime workshops at Academicus in Zurich bring together fairy tales, culture, art and classical music, with a beautiful live ballet performance by a professional ballerina. Children don't simply sit and watch. They move their bodies, explore the themes and characters of the story, listen to the music and begin to discover how a story can be expressed through movement as well as words.
It is a particularly lovely introduction to ballet for children who already adore dancing, as well as those who are simply curious and have never stepped into a ballet class before. There is no pressure to perform or get the steps right. They get to experience the music, the story and the magic of ballet in a warm, playful, child-friendly setting.
Because sometimes the best way to introduce a child to art is to let them enter the story first.
Spots book out fast so be sure to get your ticket well in advance:
See you very soon!
Here's to raising smarter, more confident & resilient children - and more often than not, it starts with us.
Your partner in success,
Mags Salton
MA Applied Linguistics & Education
AMI Certified Montessori Assistant to Infancy
Matrescence Expert
Founder of Academicus
Mother of Three
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