

Freakonomics: Game Theory and Child-Rearing - cwan
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/game-theory-and-child-rearing/

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frossie
There is a ton of evidence that people will give up individual gain in order
to punish bad behaviour. The classic example is A gets given $100. He can
choose to split it with B any way they like. B can accept the offered deal or
refuse it, in which case nobody gets anything.

From simplistic game theory B should accept any offer (for example $99 for A,
$1 for B) since B would have more money than he had before, which was nothing.

In practice with real people, anything below a 60-40 split gets rejected.
People will indeed give up gain in order to punish anti-social behaviour. You
don't have to think very long to see why we have evolved that way.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game>

With kids there is an even bigger factor in play - control. Normally, a child
is not able to punish its sibling. Under this adult-administered scheme, the
child actually has the power to send its sibling to its room! If you know how
kids crave to be able to control their situation, you realise this must be
like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny rolled into one.

A long-winded way to say: I am _so_ not surprised, and mildly confused as to
why the Freakonomics blog would be.

~~~
throw_away
there was an interesting paper last year that said that refusal behavior at
the ultimatum game was limited to westerners:
[http://www.nationalpost.com/Westerners+World+weird+ones/3427...](http://www.nationalpost.com/Westerners+World+weird+ones/3427126/story.html)

~~~
Stormbringer
That could have something to do with the relative size of the reward offered.
If the average daily income in a country is $1, then any split of $100 is
going to be significant.

Add a couple of zeroes on to it to see how a 'westerner' might feel about it.
Of course, the researchers aren't going to be able to offer too many people a
split of 10 or 100 grand in a western city before they are stampeded to
death...

I know if I was in this game and they had to split 50 grand and 'only' offered
me 10 grand I'd think a lot harder about turning it down than an 80:20 split
of $100.

On the other hand, I wonder if there is a link in western society between how
good the person is at handling their own finances, and how even the split has
to be before it would be accepted. I can think of a few examples of 'angry and
poor because of it' people who would demand nothing less than 50:50, and would
grumble even at that, they always believe that they _deserve_ more than
everyone else. It seems to me the very epitome of the poverty mentality.

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ekanes
My favorite comment from the article, and something I'll be trying on my kids:

"Our kids played upstairs in a bonus room. If I heard fighting I’d go upstairs
and break it up, then proceed to find all kinds of things that needed to be
cleaned. The bonus room was always a mess.

It didn’t take many iterations of that process before I started hearing
fighting, then “shhh! Do you want dad to come up here and tell us to start
cleaning up?!"

~~~
evolve
Yep I've done this myself with the kids. Classic stuff!

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johngalt
Good way to teach the kids to team up against the parents.

There isn't some secret to raising kids. Just create good/bad consequences for
good/bad behavior. Make sure they understand you love them, and your goal is
to teach them to be good. Their behavior is simply choosing the method in
which they are taught.

~~~
synnik
But there is a secret: The goal is not to raise good kids. The goal is to
raise good adults.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>The goal is not to raise good kids. The goal is to raise good adults.

This sounds like an empty aphorism to me. I don't want my kids to be just good
adults I want them to be good kids too. I don't mean good in the sense of
undemanding behaviourly or conforming or that sort of thing I mean I want them
to be fulfilled as much as possible in their childhood too, happy.

Someone just accused me of being unnecessarily argumentative so I'm wary of
that. But, really one does have to define what a good adult is and consider
what you mean to obviate by "not [raising] good kids".

~~~
synnik
I find it to be far from empty, and it helps me in my decisions. _shrug_

Raising good adults does not preclude raising good kids, so I do find your
response to be a bit combative. Just because you have one clear goal in mind
does not mean that other goals are not achieved along the way.

I don't really want to get into details of how I apply this concept to my
parenting -- my reason for posting was exactly the opposite. I want parents to
stop (for a moment) focusing on the details, stop worrying about specific
techniques, and look at the bigger picture - what are you really striving for
over the next 5, 10, 20 years with your kids? And are your current actions
supporting that?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Raising good adults does not preclude raising good kids, so I do find your
response to be a bit combative.

It's the "not to raise good kids" part that turns me off. Surely it should be
"to raise good kids _and_ good adults"?

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warrenwilkinson
One comment said their son did well at piano, causing their daughter to give
up, causing the son to stop in sympathy.

I don't have kids, but I thought maybe if they tied each child's reward to how
well their siblings did. Does anyone have any experience with this sort of
incentive structure?

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btilly
Interesting coincidence. My daughter got her first timeout yesterday for
hitting her brother.

The "game" she wanted to play with me last night was to give me timeouts.

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aerique
How do you deal with that? I always get mildly annoyed when my 4yo daughter
does that, but I feel that is not the right way to go about this.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I sit them on "the step" (which is any step in a quiet place where they're
supposed to think about their actions). Hence I get told "you've got to sit on
the step" when they don't like one of my edicts for some reason.

I simply challenge their dislike, if I am wrong (illogical, false premise,
unnecessarily tedious, or whatever) then I apologise and we continue.
Generally they do not want to listen to [my] reason as it compels them to
accede although I am [shock horror] proven wrong occassionally (at this stage
it tends to be on matters of fact). I guess I could get in trouble when they
argue for a democratic right or somesuch at which point they learn about
parental autocracy ...

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vitaman
I'm sorry to see the non-critical acceptance of punishment, even a time-out,
as an appropriate or effective parenting option.

The Case Against Time-Out
<http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/peter_haiman.html>

22 Alternatives To Punishment
<http://www.naturalchild.org/jan_hunt/22_alternatives.html>

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blasdel
It is time now to talk about The Wheel:
[http://www.metafilter.com/58583/Youre-so-smart-you-
probably-...](http://www.metafilter.com/58583/Youre-so-smart-you-probably-
think-this-post-is-about-you#1588699)

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dsulli
Awesome - someone should expand this idea into a book!

