Harmony in the grocery store aisle

Kirk Ericson | Aug 18, 20220

Hey, parents of young ones:

Would you like your journey through a grocery store with your children to be more harmonious? Would you like a dependable way to short-circuit the circuit in your children’s brains that forces them to badger you until your patience is as worn as a teenager’s favorite shirt?

I figured out the grocery store problem when our first child, Alexander, was about 4. The pestering was mounting in relation to his growing command of English, and he would accompany his words with sounds of longing that couldn’t be found in a dictionary. It was a problem, and I needed a solution aside from what wasn’t working: Me saying, “Would you just knock it off, please? Could you stop it for a minute? C’mon, please. Could you please just stop? Please?”

The solution to the problem came to me, maybe like the commandments reportedly came to Moses. I was struck with the answer I sought.

Because it was many years ago, what follows can’t be an exact account of the dialogue between myself and my sons, but you’ll get the gist.

“Alexander,” I said. “If you want anything at the store, ever again, you must learn to ask for nothing. If you ask me for nothing, you’ll get something. But if you ask me for something, you won’t get anything.”

It took a while for Alexander to comprehend: “Something gets you nothing, nothing gets you something. OK. OK. Got it.” On our first visit to the grocery under the new edict, we were near a candy display and he put his hand on a candy bar.

“Alexander,” I asked. “You wouldn’t be asking for that, would you?”

Alexander, all chubby-cheeked innocence, said, “Oh, no, Dad. I just think it looks interesting.” He held the candy in front of his face. “Don’t you think it looks interesting?”

Right. Very, very interesting.

Sometimes Alexander would announce midway through our time in the store that he hadn’t asked for anything yet, but I pointed out that was asking for something. Alex said he wasn’t asking for anything specific, so he wasn’t really violating the rule, specifically. I told him it was still a violation and no court would hear his appeal.

My deal concluded once we were near the checkout line. If the child hadn’t asked for anything by that point, he could get something. And if I forgot, it was OK to remind me.

When I introduced the store rule to our then 3-year-old, Ryan went quiet. He put what I said into his brain and spun it around a few times, then we tested it at the nearby Safeway. He pointed out items several times — sweet things mostly — that he insisted he wasn’t asking for.

“Hey, Dad. There are some Dots. But I’m not asking for them.”

“But if you were asking for them,” I asked, “That’s exactly what you’d want, right?”

I recall him looking wary. He knew the possibility of having Dots in his mouth depended on what words he said next.

“I’m not asking for anything,” Ryan said. “But Dots, well, I just think they’re pretty good. That’s all.”

Good. The boy got it.