I've been reading a lot about ethics lately and have been interested to see how game theory (think A Beautiful Mind and little tic-tac-toe grids with choices for each of the 'players' as column and row headings) affects our choices as parents. It turns out that ethics are taught at home, not at business school (makes you wonder about the early childhood of the CEOs of our favorite financial institutions, don't it?).

When I read today's "Motherlode" column about parenting with bribes, I was, frankly, amazed. Lisa Belkin points us to a story on the New York Moms blog about a lovely little bit of game theory as exercised by a parent who was done with sibling rivalry. A child would get fifty cents at the end of the day if he was better-behaved than his sibling; but if both were perfect, they would each get a dollar (I've illustrated this in game theory-ese, to the right).

According to Amy, her children (four and seven years old) chose the mutually beneficial outcome, even though psychological experiments with young adults typically show that competitive behavior will often void the mutually beneficial outcome. Amy set up what may be a perfect (if minorly expensive at $2 a day) game - the word for a set of choices and outcomes - proving that her children are, indeed, rational.

I've bribed my children very occasionally with mixed results; my best outcomes were with paying my oldest son, who's six, to "babysit" his little brothers while I took a shower, a nap, or worked out in the garden. Have you paid for good behavior? Has it worked?

T-Mobile is rolling out a new feature in the next few weeks called "Family Allowances" which lets parents control just about every aspect of phone usage. The plan starts out at $2 a month and covers up to 5 lines on your account. The new feature comes on the heels of feedback from 30% of parents who identified their primary concern was getting a surprise bill.

The Family Allowances program will let parents set the number of texts, downloads and minutes on their children's phones using an online tool, as well as limiting the times of the day that the phone will work. Parents can put their minds at ease with the ability to set up always-allowed numbers which will permit their children to reach them at any time.

While the "Family Allowances" feature is aimed at helping parents curb kid's desires and their inability to follow the phone usage limits imposed at the dinner table, there is also a cool way that "adults" with less self control can use the feature to manage their own usage as well. We've all heard of freezing your own credit card to ward off the temptation of overspending. Well, if you can't stop your urge to download ringtones or curb your text messaging, you can set up an allowance for yourself so that you don't go over your plan amounts. Since you'll have to wait until you're in front of a computer to bump up your limit, you'll have likely overcome the urge to purchase the new "I Kissed a Girl" ringtone you thought was sooo sweet last night.

Experts on the Today Show offer some insights on how best to teach your children about money. It's no secret that plenty of adults have money management issues, so why not start early with your kids and help them learn about personal finance?

Giving a child an allowance is a great idea, because they immediately start learning the value of money, and they are forced to start managing the money. They have to make choices with their own money, and as a result, they will be better prepared for adult money management. The kids will probably make some mistakes early on, maybe choosing to buy a candy bar and then not having enough money for the DVD they wanted. But that's how they learn about budgets and choices!

Listen to what the experts have to say below. And I agree with them: Children should have to earn their allowance. Money isn't free, and there's nothing wrong with people (even children) working for what they want. There's always a trade-off, and kids need to learn that early in order to become more responsible with their money.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.