Young Shoppers

Supermarket shopping with children, one mother says, is absolute murder: 'They want everything they see. If it's not the latest sugar- coated breakfast cereal, it's a Disney video or a comic. Usually all three. I can't afford all this stuff and, anyway, if I agree to their demands I feel I've been persuaded against my better judgement and I feel guilty about buying and feeding them rubbish. Yet I hate myself for saying no all the time, and I get cross and defensive in anticipation as we leave home. I do my best to avoid taking them shopping but then I worry that I'm not allowing them to have the experience they need in order to make their own choices. I can't win.'
Research has found that children taken on a supermarket trip make a purchase request every two minutes. More than £150 million a year is now spent on advertising directly to children, most of it on television. That figure is likely to increase and it is in the supermarket aisles that the investment is most likely to be successful. For children, the reasons behind their parents' decisions about what they can and cannot afford are often unclear, and arguments about how bad sugar is for your teeth are unconvincing when compared with the attractive and emotionally persuasive advertising campaigns.
According to Susan Dibb of the National Food Alliance, 'Most parents are concerned about what they give their children to eat and have ideas about what food is healthy - although those ideas are not always accurate. Obviously, such a dialogue between parents and children is a good thing, because if the only information children are getting about products is from TV advertising, they are getting a very one-sided view. Parents resent the fact that they are competing with the advertising industry and are forced into the position of repeatedly disappointing their children.' The Independent Television Commission, which regulates TV advertising, prohibits advertisers from telling children to ask their parents to buy products. But, as Dibb points out, 'The whole purpose of advertising is to persuade the viewer to buy something. So even if they cannot say, "Tell your mum to buy this product," the intended effect is precisely that.'
A major source of stress for some parents shopping with children is the mental energy required to decide which demands should be agreed to and which should be refused. One mother says she has patience when it comes to discussing food with her children, but she still feels unhappy about the way she manages their shopping demands: 'My son does pay attention to advertisements but he is critical of them. We talk a lot about different products and spend time looking at labels. I've talked about it so much that I've brainwashed him into thinking all adverts are rubbish. We have very little conflict in the supermarket now because the children don't ask for things I won't want to buy.'
Parents also admit they are inconsistent, even hypocritical, in their responses to their children's purchasing requests. Mike, father of a son of seven and a daughter of three, says, 'We refuse to buy him the sweets he wants on the grounds that it's bad for him while we are busy loading the trolley with double cream and chocolate for ourselves. It's enjoyable to buy nice things, and it's quite reasonable that children should want to share that, I suppose. But I still find myself being irritated by their demands. It partly depends on how I feel. If I'm feeling generous and things are going well in my life, I'm more likely to say yes. It's hard to be consistent.'
Supermarkets themselves could do a lot more to ease parent-child conflict by removing sweets from checkout areas or even by providing supervised play areas. Although parents might spend less because their children are not with them, the thought of shopping without your six-year-old's demands would surely attract enough extra customers to more than make up the difference.