10 Ways Kids Make a Decision

It’s great to be a kid. All of life’s most pressing, earth-shattering decisions – like who gets to play shortstop – can be made with a simple flick of the wrist or toss of a coin. No board meetings or conference calls – unless of course you consider congregating on a see-saw a ‘board’ meeting, or talking into tin cans connected by string a conference call. No, kids get to make their decisions in much more fun and colorful ways. Here are 10 of them:

1. Rock, Paper, Scissors – A favorite means to settle issues between contestants. You need only keep in mind the proper hierarchy: Rock breaks Scissors, Scissors cut Paper; Paper covers Rock. If, however, the kids are fans of the TV sitcom The Big Bang Theory, things get a tad more complicated.
2. Card Draw- This can be a simple process whereby participants each draw a card from an ordinary deck of laying cards, with the high card draw winning. Alternately, it can involve trading cards which are valued according to the player or character represented on the card.
3. Coin Toss – The simplest and perhaps oldest of all decision-making techniques. Pure chance, two possibilities, 50-50 odds. Now all we need to do is find someone who’s got a quarter. This sometimes involves a quick search under sofa cushions.
4. Dart Throw – Occasionally this is substituted for the coin toss when there is a dartboard in the vicinity. When making decisions, you can decide the winner by proximity to the bull’s-eye or by the numerical value of the area in which each dart lands.
5. Magic 8-Ball – “It is decidedly so.” This toy has been the kid version of the horoscope, and has decided the fates of little league teams and puppy loves for decades. Just ask it a ‘yes-or-no’ question, shake it up and, voila, there’s your answer.
6. Eenie-Meenie-Miney-Moe – This rhyme can be used in various forms – or extended to one’s own advantage if need be – so it’s best to set the ground rules at the outset when employing the veritable Eenie-Meenie decision-making device.
7. Spin the Bottle – There’s generally only one decision to make with this technique and it’s primarily employed by older kids. So you young whippersnappers can stick with the baseball cards for a few more years before we go into detail, OK?
8. She Loves Me- She Loves Me Not – Pluck the petals from a flower, reciting the rhyme to find out whether s/he does in fact have feelings for you. This one often goes together with #7.
9. One-Potato, Two-Potato – Players begin with both fists held out in front of them. A neutral party counts on each fist in succession, “One potato, two potato, three potato, four; Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more.” On “more”, the fist counted would be placed behind the player’s back. Repeat until just one player, the winner, has a fist left in front.
10. Bat Toss – This is normally used for choosing sides in baseball. One player lightly tosses a bat to another, who catches it in one hand. His or her grip marks the starting point, each player alternating grips above the last, to the knob of the bat. The top grip wins.

Taken From Hire a Nanny