My thoughts on this are simple. If you have more than one child, do not do it. Ever. At all.
My thoughts, however, are not particularly practical because invariable on the way home at 18h00 your child will remind you it is baker man tomorrow or that they need a plastic cover for their school book or you remember while sitting in traffic that you need formula or nappies or both. Or some days you just need to stock the cupboards and have nowhere for your sweet angels to go. So you have to take them with.
When this happens try to remember these 5 things (if possible)
Avoid suicide hour. Unless someone may lose their life if you don’t stop. Avoid stopping at the shops with kids on the way home from work/school especially if it is after 16h00. The children will be tired, you are tired, and everyone else in the shops are tired. There is a strong possibility everyone will be hungry too. A hungry and tired child in a shop will only end in a disaster.
Do not give in to the wails. As hard as it may be, do not give in to pleas from your child for the sugar laden drink or the icing covered cupcake. Do not do it. I know you think it will buy you some time but the second that sugar hits their lips they will turn into turbo charged demons on a high that will last exactly long enough for you to get home and start dinner/attempt bedtime at which point they will crash and crash hard, turning dinner time into a hot mess of tears and tantrums.
Contain them. Put them inside the trolley. When they try to escape push faster and grab what you need, this is not the time to stand and price watch, its grab and go. No one has the skills needed to guide children through the shops, push a trolley AND remember the things you need. No one. So put them inside the trolley and commence your mad dash through the aisles.
Don’t dawdle. This is not the time to scrutinize the ingredient list of everything or work out the price per gram. Save those moments for when you pop out to the shops while dad is on duty. Go with what you know, get the essentials, the products you trust. Your objective is to get in and out as quickly as you can.
Prepare for the checkout isle. We all know how well planned these isles are. My personal favourite are the ones with the sheep-like pens that block in you an isle with sweets, chips, chocolates (and blades) on either side. Once you are in, there is no way to get out! You know this is going to happen, prepare for it. If you are entering the walk isle of doom, use every single power of distraction in your arsenal. Sing, dance, shout, hand over your brand new iPhone 6 – whatever it takes to make sure your child does not spot the brightly coloured Hello Kitty egg that costs half of the entire contents of your trolley and demand it immediately. If you are at the normal check outs, stand far enough away from the person in front of you so that you aren’t in between the sweets but close enough not to lose your spot. Focus on the fact that once you are through this final obstacle on your shopping trip you are home free!
Sometimes it is easier to get everyone to eat baked beans on toast for dinner than herding your children through the grocery store when they don’t want to!
AMEN! I had such an incident not more than a week ago. School party required sweets and we were stuck in the shop and in the sweet aisle. It was not pleasant and cost more than it should have, but we survived. Excellent advice!