6 Tips to Make Grocery Shopping with Children a More Pleasant Experience

Joe almost always does our grocery shopping.

I love to shop.

What? Are you thinking that those two sentences don't work together? Well, yes they do.

I love to shop for anything.

Healthy food, candy, greeting cards, paper products, potted plants, household items... my love for spending our hard-earned money never ends.

So I avoid the grocery store just like I avoid all the other stores because our budget can't handle my even entering the premises.

My money-saving strategy is to send Joe to the grocery store because he is capable of walking in with his list and walking back out again with only those items, something I could never in a million years do.

Anyway, I digress. The reason I'm writing this post is to help you, my dear reader, to make your grocery shopping trips more pleasant.

I just want to help you out here.

6 Tips to Make Grocery Shopping with Children a More Pleasant Experience

1. Stuff your children into a car cart. I have written about car carts before. They are my best friend. My kids are infinitely more happy when they are riding with their knees around their ears, honking at passersby. They laugh like hyenas and think they're getting away with some big caper, just because I'm pushing them in a cart meant for children half their age. Or younger. There is another benefit to the car cart, and that is that it places the children's eye level lower than the really cool food items. They miss the stuff they would normally beg for.
2. However, this leads me to item #2. Buy them some of the stuff they ask for. You may be in Joe's camp, which is Say no to every request. but I am not. I say yes to a few things, and this gives me both happy children and leverage for the rest of their requests. "Oh, you want a bag of chips? Well, do you want a bag of chips more or less than you want a can of cheese balls? You can only choose one, so you will have to think about it." And voilà! I have a happy child who feels empowered by her ability to make choices for herself. It works equally well for my 8-year-old as for my 4-year-old, and it makes everyone happy. Except for Joe who says we spend too much money at the grocery store.
3. Reward your children for good behavior. I know you aren't supposed to reward them with food. That's bad in many ways. So you could promise them a small toy or a quarter for the gumball machine or a package of stickers if they behave the whole way through the store. Or you could go with my completely hypocritical plan and offer them a bottle of Snapple® Straight Up Tea for good behavior. Straight Up Tea is black tea with a touch of real sugar, making it a perfect bribe reward for good behavior. It works like a charm, and they will behave like the little angels you already know they are.
4. Enlist your kids' help. If your kids are too big to stuff into the car cart or they insist on walking (the horrors!), enlist their help to find what you're looking for. Yes, you could find the items more quickly on your own. Of course you can. But the point is that you can get your kids involved in the shopping instead of their being involved in mischief making. Having them on your side is always a plus. So, how do you do this? Ask them to find products on the shelf. Depending on their level of reading awareness, you might ask them to find the name of the product or a blue bottle with a big S on it or even just a tall blue bottle.
   
5. Go to the store after a meal. Let's say, just hypothetically that you decide to go to the grocery store right after church on Sunday when everyone is starving. That would be dumb. Nobody I know does that. {ahem} When you're hungry, not only is shopping not particularly fun, but every single product on every single shelf will sound like the most delicious food that was ever made and you will spend way more than you intended. Not that I know or anything. I clearly have never, ever done that.
6. Treat yourself. I think a perfect treat is a cold bottle of Snapple® Straight Up Tea. Everyone in my family is huge on tea, specifically black tea. We have always loved Snapple Peach Tea, so we recently tried Snapple® Straight Up Tea.  This new tea combines real brewed tea taste with sweetness to match your preference. It comes in 3 varieties: Unsweetened with 0 calories, Sorta Sweet with 90 calories, and Sweet with 180 calories. There's something for everyone!
   We're not big fans of unsweetened tea, so we tried Sorta Sweet and Sweet and liked them both. I think I prefer the Sorta Sweet but would happily drink either one. You can find Snapple® Straight Up Tea at Giant grocery stores. It's sometimes near the breadcrumbs, but I found it near the nuts and snacks in my Giant. You can also find Straight Up Tea at Stop N Shop stores nationwide.
    

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of DPSG. The opinions and text are all mine.