As every parent and grandparent knows, kids have an incredible tolerance for repetition. They can watch the same Phineas and Ferb episode again and again without flinching; they’d happily consume waffles and French fries three meals a day. When one of my sons was in preschool, he wore a Boston Red Sox baseball hat 24/7 (barring bathtime) for two years straight.

But experts say that children have more than just a tolerance for ritual repetition, they actually crave it.  And that it is in the simple repetitions of life that our human beings find the sense of order and predictability they need to thrive in an unpredictable world. Perhaps exponentially so in our rocket-paced, technology-based, achievement-driven, media-ridden 21st century society.