Dear Amy: I have a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old. My son (age 3) really acts out when I take him shopping. I find it very stressful and hard to control him. He screams, kicks and bites me when I try to keep him in the cart.
Do you recommend any tactics on how to handle this?
— Frazzled Shopper
Dear Frazzled: I shared your question with Claire Zulkey: journalist, author of a parenting newsletter (zulkey.com) and — like you — mother of two young children. She responds: “Second-born 3-year-old boys are the number one cause of gray hair, at least in my home.
“The ideal solution is to get out of shopping with the kids, or at least the youngest. If you can, throw bit of money at the problem — ordering groceries online, or hiring a babysitter for an hour so you can shop solo. Unless cash flow is very tight, don’t talk yourself out of this like it’s a luxury. Your sanity is a worthy investment, and your child won’t be like this forever.
“Also, talk to your husband. Can he do the shopping on the way home from work, or stay home with the kids while you shop? Or do you have a friend with kids your age who will trade sits with you?
“If those options are untenable, my recommendation is to try to go to the store as early as humanly possible when the kids haven’t started to melt down yet and, more importantly, the store has fewer people in it to heighten the stress.
