Loss aversion at five

S2, the five-year old has just discovered jokes.  "Why did the banana cross the road?," she asked me a few weeks ago, pausing a few seconds before squealing out "because it wanted to be a banana split!" She tried out the joke on every adult she met for the next few days and that got her hankering for a banana split.  I promised her that I would get her a banana split if she did well at a forthcoming piano audition. She did do well today, and so we took the kids to Braum's.

S1, the eight-year old, decided that he wanted a strawberry shortcake. "I too want a strawberry shortcake," said S2.

"But," I protested, "you've been looking forward to a banana split for a month!"

"I want to get the same thing as S1," she said.  So, strawberry shortcake it was.

"You need to do what you want to do," I suggested, "and not just change your mind because S1 is doing something different." 

"But I want to taste what S1 is having."

"S1 would have let you have a spoon of his ice cream if you'd asked him.  You didn't need to also get the same thing."

"What if I have a taste of his ice cream and it is way, way better than mine?"