All parents know that the best way to avoid meltdowns and tantrums is to leave the children at home when you shop.  Of course, we also know that shopping without the kids is a pipe-dream, a logistical impossibility.

Today I’m going to share with you my sure-fire, tried-and-true method for avoiding the gimmes while shopping with children.

Never, ever, under any circumstances, purchase anything for your child for their immediate consumption while shopping.

There are many variations on the parents-trying-to-survive-shopping-with-kids theme and I’ve witnessed them all.  Buying a toy or a treat or a snack and then either giving it to the child to keep them quiet and placated or holding it in reserve as a reward/bribe for their good behavior during shopping.

No matter what the variation, don’t do it!

The cardinal rule for shopping with children is to never establish a correlation between shopping and acquisition.

Don’t get me wrong — I am not advocating torture or deprivation or cruelty.  I’ve been happily shopping with children for 15 years now and my children are anything but deprived.  But they also, never to this day, have asked me for a candy bar or other treat at the grocery store or for a toy or game or any other trinket for their immediate pleasure.  My children do not equate shopping with immediate gratification because they’ve grown up with the complete and total absence of immediate gratification while shopping.

Shopping is a necessary chore — something we do because we need something — be it food or clothes or a gift for cousin Bob.  Sometimes we buy things that weren’t on the shopping list but these things always go into the cart and from the cart to the bag and from the bag to the car and from the car to the house where it is then put away in its proper place until it is needed.

I’m a practical woman and also a bit of a soft touch.  Even though I never made an immediate gratification purchase for my children while shopping, the doesn’t mean that I didn’t see to their needs and wants.  With rare exceptions, my children always had something to eat and something to play with during our shopping excursions.  All it takes is a little bit of forethought and planning.

The key is to keep it special.  When my kids were little, I always kept a stash of finger food in the cupboard that was saved for special occasions like boo boos and shopping trips – snacks like Goldfish, Sunspire candies, animal crackers, etc.  Costco has huge plastic tubs of yummy cinnamon alphabet cookies and big bags of trail mix that my kids loved.  I found that the snack that worked the best at keeping my kids occupied and happy were bags of mixed snacks (a combination of fishies, candies, letters, etc) — good for occupying little minds as well as hands and mouths.  Of course, these snacks will leave the kids thirsty so don’t forget the juice box or travel sippy cup!

The same goes for toys — keep it special.  Just as I held snacks in reserve, I also kept toys in reserve just for shopping.  And here, too, variety works best.  After some trial and error, I finally established three or four small bags containing a collection of toys. Then I’d rotate the bags so the toys wouldn’t become familiar and boring.  Matchbox cars and Little Rollies vehicles and animals were among my kids’ favorites.  When they were a bit older, a Dover little activity books would keep them well occupied.  The bags of toys stayed in the car, tucked into the glove box or trunk and came out only for a shopping excursion.  Once shopping was done, the toys went back into the bag.

My kids learned to look forward to shopping trips as an opportunity to munch on a special snack and play with special toys — not as an opportunity to wheedle a purchase out of mom.

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