Gone are the days where I can slowly walk around the supermarket aisles and browse the shelves at my leisure. These days, supermarket trips consist of me and the husband either trying to lure our 3-year-old away from the toy section or chasing him around the aisles (usually both). And so here you have it – five different types of supermarket tantrums that I’ve dealt with:
The “but I want to sit on the floor and play with ALL the toys for hours!” tantrum
As mentioned above, trying to lure my toddler away from the toy section is like trying to lure me away from the massive bar of chocolate in the fridge – very hard. No matter how many times I try to explain that a supermarket is not a stay and play, my 3-year-old still insists on testing out every single toy that has a “try me” sticker attached to it.
He once threw a terrible tantrum in Asda’s toy section and I’ve never forgotten it. It still makes me cringe.
It’s even worse when shopping with both the kids.
“Oooh, come and look at these!” says child 1 excitedly, beckoning child 2 over and showing him a section of toys.
“Oooh they’re nice, come and look at these!” replies child 2, trying to lure child 1 over to another section of toys.
This goes on for at least ten minutes, after which my patience shrivels up and I say “put the toys down and come with me now!” in a stern voice (sounding very much like a police officer whose arresting her children).
The Lie Down in the middle of the supermarket aisle tantrum
The most infuriating and embarrassing of all supermarket tantrums. I’m pretty sure a lot of parents have dealt with this one. That awkward moment when your child lies down in the middle of an aisle and refuses to get up and you’re there trying to prise them off the floor.
“Come on, get up please!”
“NO!”
“Please get up now, everyone is staring!”
“NO!”
Part of me has to resist the urge to shout “fine! Be like that then! I’m leaving!” and walk off, but having no choice but to be the responsible one in all of this I usually get my shit together and remove the tiny, uncooperative human off the floor as quickly as I can.
“I’m pretty sure I never did any of this shit when I was three,” I think to myself as we leave the store red-faced with a screaming child in tow. Then when recounting the story to my mother later she informs me that I did do this shit. I still refuse to believe that my toddler behaviour ever reached the same levels of arseholery as my 3-year-old’s.
The grab a random item and put it in mummy and daddy’s basket tantrum
Babies and toddlers love to grab things that they shouldn’t and this makes supermarket trips a challenge. On several occasions, I’ve discovered an item in my trolley that I didn’t put there. This situation doesn’t often result in a tantrum, but because my 3-year-old usually has a “don’t you dare put that random item back on the shelf” look on his face every time this happens I’m pretty sure it would.
The self-serve tantrum
My little one loves the self-serve checkouts. He’s currently going through that stage where toddlers insist that they can do exactly the same things as adults. No amount of reminding him that he is only 3 years old works and refusal to let him take charge results in the mother of all supermarket tantrums. He grabs the items and scans them through perfectly like a boss. You’d think this was helpful and sometimes it is, but I usually have to remind him that the item he has just scanned has to stay in the bagging area. The situation usually ends with me trying to avoid eye contact with other shoppers as the self-serve shouts out that there is an “UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA” for the fourth time.
The lactose-free cow tantrum
This type of tantrum occurred in the very early years when my eldest was going through that stage where she became transfixed with a particular picture or item. In this case, it was the illustration of the cow on the cartons of lactose-free milk.
No matter how many times we passed that cow, my lovely then one-and-a-half-year-old insisted on going back up the supermarket aisle just to look at it. And threw one of the worst supermarket tantrums when we tried to move her away from it. It didn’t matter that we had the exact same carton with the exact same picture of the cow on it in the fridge at home. She wanted to look at the one on the supermarket shelf and nothing else would do.
She’s six now and we all look back and laugh about that one!
Oh the joys of raising small children!
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