Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, both brilliant professors, have produced a book together entitled Nudge.  (For an excellent review, read this piece in Slate by Dahlia Lithwick.)  The central premise of the book is this:  in a world of too many choices and too little time, with the former growing larger and the latter seemingly growing shorter, we humans as decisional agents seem to make a lot of bad choices with our time, and that these choices have potentially grave consequences.  For a simple example:  food intake.  In a world of speed eating, the faster rather than the healthier alternative tends to win.  And while this short-term rationality may be appealing, long-term we set the stage for a host of health problems.  Another simple example:  savings.  In a world of mega-consumer choice and advertising that encourages us to consume or be left behind, more of us end up buying consumer goods beyond a sensible percentage of income, leaving long-term savings depleted.

The argument has great powerful force and flows from a famous theorem by economist Kenneth Arrow, who proved that it is impossible to optimize choices democratically.  The answer from Sunstein and Thaler is essentially to have government rig the system by giving us incentives — the nudge — to make the right choices.  The nudge is nothing new — the tax code is riddled with nudges, not all of them sensible.  But ther breadth of application suggested by the authors is quite provocative.

I raise this book and its argument not just for general information but for its application to parenting and education.  Kids face too many choices growing up as they try to get an education and learn a sense of values and play sports and have fun.  Kids tend to be impulsive and not as organized as adults; parents need to guide kids at these critical phases.  But at the same time, parents hear about encouraging their kids to take responsibility early and own their choices.  Two competing trends, each with supporting arguments.  What should a parent do?

With regard to education, the long-term is where to focus.  If you want your child to be sent off to college and into the workforce with skills essential to success or even just survival — organizational skills, solid work ethic, integrity, good values — you need to make sure they get these skills in elementary and secondary school.  That means parents must put a premium not on ultimate results (grades) but on weekly or daily process — the means rather than the ends.  This is where the nudge comes in.  While kids need to feel the pain of responsibility and the consequences of not exercising it properly, they also need incentives to move in the right direction, if not certain prohibitions on extreme conduct.  For example, start to categorize items kids take for granted — television, video games, computer time, music — as privileges that must be earned, with points focused not on grades but on daily and weekly performance — doing homework completely and correctly, spending the minimum time doing schoolwork, maintaining an organized planner, completeing chores, being kind to family and friends alike.

Introducing the nudge in this fashion helps parents balance the vast array of choices, many of them bad, in front of their kids with the sensible values that undergird developing competence in critical areas during adolescence.  Is this easy?  No, but not as difficult as it may appear.  And the benefits are wonderful because the incentives become habits — good habits that no longer need heavy incentives.  Creating a system of behavior modification that is actually choice-driven by the child weaves responsibility with better odds of good outcomes.  It keeps parents influential without becoming police officers.

We all benefit from a little nudge now and then, yes?  Give it a try!

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 1:50 pm and is filed under For Educators, For Parents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.