Tips for Grocery Shopping With Kids
Grocery shopping with your kids provides the perfect opportunity to teach them valuable skills and have fun together. Kids of all ages can learn about math, build their vocabulary, and understand the importance of good nutrition.
Your kids may be prone to restlessness and unhealthy requests. However, with some preparation and heaps of patience, you can make every grocery trip enjoyable and productive. These handy tips can show you how to make grocery shopping fun for the whole family.
Preparing for the Trip
Start by preparing for your trip to the grocery store. You can plan distractions in case of a toddler temper tantrum, and you can involve your kids in meal planning and create the grocery shopping list together. This will also reinforce the food and nutrition lessons.
Here are some tips for planning:
- Create the shopping list together: Bring the kids on board by sitting together and making an essentials list. Talk about which items your pantry needs for the week’s snacks and meals.
- Respect the budget: Discuss the importance of a budget, and involve your older kids in price comparisons. Help them understand how you make everything fit into the total.
- Meal planning: Involve your older kids in meal planning by writing out the weekly meals on a dry-erase board. If your kids display a deeper interest, you can enroll in an online course to learn all about crafting healthy meals and reading nutrition labels.
Top Tip: Don’t go to the store if you’re both hungry. This helps to avoid “hangry” tantrums and off-list shopping temptations.
Making Grocery Shopping a Learning Experience
Food shopping can teach your kids valuable life skills, such as budgeting. It can also help them become smart shoppers who seek out budget-friendly items. As you guide the “grocery shopping list for kids” creation process, point out these important points:
- Cultural exploration: Older kids can help with menu creations. Take time to teach them about different cuisines and foods from around the world. Ask them if they would like to try any new ingredients, fruits, or vegetables.
- Math practice: Enlist their help in price comparison, counting items you add to the cart, and weighing fresh produce to make sure the food stays within your budget.
- Teach them about nutrition: Discuss different food groups and how each helps us stay healthy. Guide your kids in reading food labels and discussing good eating habits. Then, allow them to choose fresh produce to add to the shopping list.
- Environmental awareness: Teach your kids about planning meals to reduce food waste, how you can use leftovers creatively, and how you can recycle or reuse product packaging to be more sustainable.
Top Tip: Use mini grocery store toys with younger kids to help them envision the shopping process.
Managing Behavior in the Store
Grocery shopping can be an overwhelming experience for kids. They can get tired, overstimulated, and tempted by tasty-looking candies. Preparing them for the in-store experience is essential, so set ground rules, and tell your kids what behavior you expect from them during the shopping trip. Here are some ground rules we suggest:
- Tell your kids to stay close to you and what to do if they get separated from you in the store.
- Encourage kids only to pick up or touch items if you’re adding them to the cart.
- Encourage your kids to use their inside voices.
- Tell your kids to listen to directions in the car and the store.
Top Tip: Reinforce good behavior with praise and rewards. You can also remind kids to stick to the rules by engaging them and assigning tasks like finding items on the list or bagging groceries.
Planning Shopping Games for Kids
Be patient and understanding if your kids start to act out. It’s hard work being visually stimulated while trying to stick to the ground rules. Create shopping games for kids to offer them a new kind of distraction:
- Play “I Spy” with grocery items.
- Play an ingredient guessing game — tell your kids you want to make spaghetti sauce and have them suggest ingredients.
- With older kids, you can have them guess the prices of different items.
- For good behavior, let them choose a meal you can cook together after your next shopping trip.
Top Tip: If your kids are picky eaters, make trying new foods fun. Encourage your child by asking them what they want to try or making a game of having small tastes of new foods.
Addressing Common Concerns
Preparation, communication, and positive reinforcement will help make grocery shopping trips fun and safe. Common concerns about these trips with kids of any age include:
- Healthy choices: Make healthy food fun by having your kids pick colorful fruits, new veggies, and tasty whole grains.
- Impulse buys: Impulse buys can account for up to 62% of supermarket sales and even more in specific product category sales. Adding treats and special items to the list helps you stick to them. Give your happy helpers the important task of reminding you to stick to the list.
- Safety first: Teach your kids not to taste food in-store and to wash their hands after handling raw foods as part of food safety awareness. If you have little ones in the cart, use buckles or a child seat to prevent accidents. Never let them stand in a cart — shopping cart incidents are the leading cause of head injuries among young children.
- Hunger during the trip: Bring some healthy sugar-free snacks along to avoid impulse buys and keep hungry tummies happy.
- Time management: Planning your trip, including which aisles to hit and in which order, will help you minimize in-store time. Opt for a shopping trip when the store is less crowded to take some pressure off yourself.
Top Tip: Maintain your shopping efficiency by involving kids in finding specific items. This task keeps them focused and entertained to avoid distractions and restlessness.
Explore More Family-Friendly Resources With Nurture Life
Round off your shopping trip by asking your kids what they learned during it. Ask them about their favorite finds, new foods they want to try and what they enjoyed the most about the experience — this is also a way for you to learn how to make grocery shopping fun and productive.
While grocery store shopping can be fun with a buddy, you may not always have the time. During busy seasons, you can rely on Nurture Life. Our food delivery services are tailored for kids, and the process is simple. Just build a box — we’ll cook it and deliver it to your doorstep.
Nurture Life is here to simplify your life with healthy kids’ meals, smoothies, and ready-to-eat snacks. As a Partnership for a Healthier America member, we’re dedicated to helping you feed your children freshly made, nutritious meals developed by registered dieticians. Shop a variety of fresh meal options, and make the most of our meal plans today.