Posted on 07/14/2014 12:59:50 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
Can't get your children to eat their vegetables or clean up their toys? Game theory offers some solutions.
The party is over, and you're down to the last bit of cake. All three of your children want it. If you're familiar with game theory, you might think of the classic strategy in which one person cuts the cake and the other chooses the slice. But how do you divide it three ways without anyone throwing a fit?
Game theory is, in essence, the science of strategic thinking—a way of making the best decision possible based on the way you expect other people to act. It was once the domain of Nobel Prize-winning economists and big thinkers on geopolitics, but now parents are getting in on the act. Though game theory assumes, as a technical matter, that its players are rational, it applies just as well to not-always-rational children.
A key lesson in game theory, says Barry Nalebuff, a professor at the Yale School of Management, is to understand the perspective of the other players. It isn't about what you would do in another person's shoes, he says; it's about what they would do in their shoes. "Good game theory," he says, "appreciates the quirks and features that make us unique and takes us as we are." The same could be said of good parenting.
So how to deal with the problem of dividing a piece of cake into three equal shares? Try this: After the first child cuts and the second one chooses, each child further cuts his or her own slice into thirds. The third child then chooses a third of a slice from each plate. It might get messy, but all three should feel fairly treated.
Here are a few more practical, game theory-based solutions....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I grew up in a large family of 6 kids, too. You ate what mama cooked or you went hungry. There were no leftovers in our house.
Farts are like children. You can’t stand any but your own.
How about "If you three don't stop whining about how your brother or sister got a bigger piece, I'm throwing the whole damn cake down the garbage disposal and none of you will have any."
Please see my comment #19.
My kids love broccoli. Peas? Not so much. I don't think I ate broccoli knowingly until I was 19.
If my kids complained about “fair” I took a fork and started taking bites to make sure it was “even”.
They stopped.
I eat the cake and too damned bad for the kids....when they are mean parents, they too can eat the cake!!
Here’s how game theory worked at our house. I would take the three pieces of cake.
“We’re going to play a game. Pick a number from one to ten.”
“Five.”
“Eight.”
“Good choices!”
Then I ate all three pieces.
Agree. Looking at the general size of kids these days, skipping the cake would be a pretty good idea.
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