For once a good, honest brainteaser.

[Serotonin]

Jane: Can you guess the ages of my 3 children?
John: Well, I need some clues.
Jane: The product of their ages is 36.
John: That's not enough!
Jane: The sum of their ages is my street number, and you know what number I live at.
John: I still need more information!
Jane: The eldest one plays tennis.
John: Okay, now I have their ages!

What are the children's ages?
No, it is not a trick question.
Yes, there is enough information there to get a single correct answer.
Those who have seen this before are advised to keep their smugness index to a minimum.
Worked solution will be provided in 24 hours.

[Edmond Zedo]

6,2,3

[synchronous]

1,3,12

[Serotonin]

Keep trying. I shall regularly check. The first correct poster gets a kiss.

[Elro]

Jane: The sum of their ages is my street number, and you know what number I live at.

Argh. I do not understand this clue, even looking at Zedo's answers. :rant: How does this one contribute anything to the answer?

[Edmond Zedo]

I thought it was extraneous...This is a very odd, dishonest brainteaser.

[Edmond Zedo]

Keep trying. I shall regularly check. The first correct poster gets a kiss.
From whom?

[Serotonin]

My grandmother, for you Zedo. From me, for everyone else.

[Edmond Zedo]

Eww. I could throw out every possible answer for xyz=36, but not for that.

[ApeTheDog]

2, 2 and 9

I haven't really worked this out in detail, but I think that 13 is the only age that the product could be, for which two different answers exist - hence making it so John has to ask another question. In any other situation, he would have gotten it with the second question.

The only other answer to that question with the same product and sum would be 1, 6, 6 - in which case there would no be an eldest child - they'd be the same age, ie. a twin. Hence, John guessing it correctly upon learning there is an eldest child.

Okay, I'm probably wrong because I didn't work this out at all, but there you go anyway.

[Serotonin]

:kiss: for ApeTheDog
*gets hair in mouth, spits, but does not regret*
Nice work.

[synchronous]

Well, maybe you're on to something with respect to the twins:

3,3,4

[Serotonin]

My dad and I argued for ages about 3,3,4. It's incorrect, because John would have said "Now I know" after the second clue instead of the third. There is no other triad of numbers that both add to 10 and produce to 36. (Hence he "needs more information").

[ApeTheDog]

Wow. Thanks! I couldn't have done it without my MS wordpad. And the blooddoping, of course. Jerrycans of blooddoping.

[synchronous]

Argh! LOL.

[Edmond Zedo]

Yeah, I'm sure I could have figured it out on a high powered stimulant mix and oxygen.

I can't even begin to figure booyalab's Zebra brainsmasher.