Can you cure your kids' 'gimmes'?

Set great expectations.

Make it clear from the get-go, Deerwester says, that you aren't buying toys today but are at the store to get groceries or whatever you are there to do. Say how long the trip will last.

"Say, I need your cooperation for a half-hour," Deerwester advises. But don't push that time frame. "The only way this is going to work is if you live up to your word every time you do it."

Create a distraction.

If you're shopping for something kids don't care much about -- such as groceries or jeans for Mom -- it might require a little more work on your part. Kids get antsy when the focus isn't on them.

So give them something to do, Deerwester says, like helping you pick out some of your groceries. Or, if they're not interested in helping, she suggests playing games like counting the number of people with polka-dot shirts, red shoes or black jackets.

I gave these tactics a whirl at my local grocery store during rush hour. I started in the produce aisle, where my son tends to demand every type of fruit to eat now.

When he started asking for something to snack on, I asked him to name every green vegetable he saw. That lasted for a good 20 seconds. Then I tried the "I spy" trick, to no success.

But surprisingly, getting him involved in picking out our groceries seemed to help.

Choosing the flavor of yogurt we bought, for instance, soothed his ruffled feathers after his requests for ice cream were rebuffed.

Of course they want stuff

Kids shouldn't be made to feel bad for wanting things, contends Levin, of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. After all, they are trained by commercials and billboards to be attracted to anything remotely novel.

Ads for toys and cookies show kids having lots of fun, friends and family time --something everybody wants.

But where do you draw the line when it comes to treats? That's the hardest thing to define, and it's different for every family, says Olivia Mellan, a psychotherapist and the author of "Overcoming Overspending."

Just about every parent wavers between feeling like they are denying their kids and feeling like they indulge them too much.

How much is too much?

I'd gone through this. My family had been using a tactic I picked up from my older son's "The Berenstain Bears Get the Gimmies" book. (Yes, sometimes I learn parenting techniques from cartoon animals.)

This method, advocated by the grandma bear, had the frustrated mama and papa allowing their kids one sweet, toy or book when they took their kids shopping. If they whined for more, they left empty-handed.

Sounded good to me. But pretty soon, my son was demanding a "special treat" every time we went to the store, dry cleaner or anywhere else. And the treat he was choosing was getting bigger and bigger.

Did I really need to indulge him every time we went somewhere?

• Talk back: How do you handle the 'gimmes' when kids get greedy?

Experts say no. The truth is that we probably indulge too much, Mellan says, given how often our workaholic society uses material goods to substitute for time together and to express our love.

We can reverse the focus by teaching kids how to make themselves happy with something other than stuff and to balance some of the getting with giving:

• Create holiday rituals that don't involve shopping, such as caroling or piling in the car with pajamas on to go look at holiday lights, Deerwester says.

• If your kids are old enough to count out change, Mellan suggests giving them an allowance each week and three jars to put it in -- one for saving, one for charitable giving and one for spending.

• When you're out shopping with your kids around the holiday season, have them pick out a toy to donate to charity, Levin suggests.

Do take your kids shopping

But don't shy totally away from taking your kids to the mall, Deerwester says. It's painful, but it teaches the same sort of life lessons about appropriate behavior that taking them out to dinner does.

Of course, Deerwester says, if you've got a long list to tick off and a few stores to hit, you're probably better off doing that on your own.

Kids don't have to hit the mall every time you go to learn these lessons, says MSN message board reader Jacky Thomas of Sarasota, Fla. "That's why there is 'daddy-daughter' time."

Published Dec. 17, 2008

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