I couldn’t possibly claim to do everything right with
kids. Is there anyone who could? The truth is, I often feel like I’m failing –
I’m impatient, short-tempered, don’t listen enough, and the mommy mommy mommy
drives me up the wall. I love my kids, but sometimes they make me want to crawl
out of my own skin.
HOWEVER.
There is one thing I do that I’m pretty proud of. It’s a
small thing – I love to shop with my kids. Errands? Bring ‘em on. The grocery
store? The more the merrier (I once took my two children and a 16-month cousin to the grocery store for a full grocery run). So I thought I would share my
secrets with you on how I not only do my errands and shop with kids, but prefer
to do all of it with them. Give me my cocktail on the deck by myself. Target I’ll
do with kids.
* Here’s my biggest secret: make it fun. Give yourself
enough time, go with a game plan and a good attitude. When you’re stressed, the
kids will just make it worse. Take Mary Poppins’ advice:
Here’s how you do that: for every one or two errands that
you need for you, do something for the kids. Is there a pet store nearby? Stop
in to see the animals. Need to get lunch during errands? Go to a place with a
play area. Going to Target? Hit the toy aisles so they can play for a few
minutes before you leave. You can even stop into a sporting goods store and let
them look at the baseballs and bicycles – I swear, if you tell them you are “letting
them” do something, they will assume they like it. If you don’t want to go to a
different store altogether, when you’re at Bed Bath and Beyond – ask them what
THEY want to look at, and spend a few minutes looking at pig-styled kitchen
stuff and As Seen On TV slushy makers.
This is not to say “bribe” them. I usually don’t tell my
kids that we’ll do something for them. This way if I don’t end up with time, I’m
not disappointing them. It’s usually more of a “Hey! There’s a Petsmart! Let’s
go look at the fish!” Feels spontaneous to them, but obviously it’s not.
There are also a few tricks to my tricks. I don’t do it
all the time. Sometimes it’s related to time, but also I don’t want them to
EXPECT it because then it’s just another chore for me. Every time we go to
Target I do not let them play in the toy aisles (although at this point I tell
them ahead of time that we don’t have time to look at the toys). Or sometimes,
if I’m pressed for time but still want them to enjoy themselves, I say they can
pick ONE aisle to look in. Also, we never buy. I do not buy toys unless I had
entered a store for that purpose. This goes for everywhere – the Disney store,
gift shops, Target, Toys R Us. I’m not scared of stopping by a toy store just
to look because the boys know we aren’t buying (this is not to say they don’t
ask, but they don’t seem to be so upset when I say no).
The toys live at Target. When you’re done playing, you
put them back on the shelf and say “goodbye, toys!” Give a little wave.
When we go to the grocery store, we get a free cookie
from the bakery. This also is not a bribe for being good, however I will
specifically say no cookie if they haven’t been good. Henry got in trouble at
daycare? No cookie at Publix when we stop for milk. Cookie is the first stop if
we only have a few things to get, and the last stop if I need a full cart of
groceries.
There are other, smaller tricks, that I use through the
store. Spencer is learning to read, so I try to always make a list of stops or
a grocery list so he can keep track of it for me. He likes to mark off things
that we do. Henry counts how many items we got, or how many things we need to
get. We see how many red things are in the cart, or if we can find the sign
with popsicles on it in the store.
I think I stress “no bribes” so much because my mom
bribed my siblings for every inch of good behavior she got, and she spent a lot
of much on throwaway toys and never really got good behavior out of them (I was
older so I saw this, however I have no idea how I was growing up).
(an addition: I do not like clothes shopping with kids, but I'm pretty terrible about clothes shopping anyhow. This is how I make it work: I get the largest dressing room and let them go crazy in it while I'm trying things on. I don't worry about noise, I encourage singing while standing on the bench and jumping up and down in front of the mirror. In exchange I ask that they stay with me while I yank anything off the racks that might possibly work on me as quickly as possible. This works most of the time)
I can’t imagine that this works for every child/children.
And sometimes it doesn’t work for me – I won’t lie. But I think the best thing
you can do for yourself is to give yourself as much time as possible, and look
at every errand like a game. You’ll be a lot happier, and then so will your
kids while you drag them all over creation looking for that specific cream
moisturizer and the book you heard about on Twitter, and to pay the electric
bill.
