Grocery shopping is part and parcel of life as a parent. Most parents will go grocery shopping at least once a week to stock up on household and kitchen essentials. If you have children, you may often take them along with you.
Bringing your kids along to shopping trips has many advantages. Rather than treating it as an inconvenience or a chore, you can turn it into a fun learning experience for your children. Additionally, these outings offer the perfect opportunity for you to bond with them. Let’s look at how you can benefit from taking your children along:
Why You Should Take Your Kids Grocery Shopping
Shopping is something that your children will have to do by themselves one day. As such, it makes sense to start training them when they’re young to know the ins and outs of buying necessities. Turn your shopping trips into valuable lessons for your children with these ideas;
Learning About Various Food Items
Shopping trips are a good way of exposing your children to the different food items available. There are a few ways that this can help them. For starters, your children will be able to learn the names of the different fruits and vegetables. Additionally, you’ll also be able to teach them the types of meats, the different edible parts of those meats and the various seafood.
In addition to teaching them about the variety of food items available, you can also increase their vocabulary. This allows them to express themselves better later on, especially when meals are concerned.
When they know more about food, you’ll encourage them to be more curious and therefore be more open to try these new items during meals. Hopefully, this will add to the list of foods they like and will readily eat later on.
Learning About Financial Concepts
With young children, grocery shopping is an excellent opportunity to teach them the basics financial concepts. For instance, they need to understand that you cannot just take anything you want from a store. It has to be bought with money. Secondly, you can teach them that every item in the store has different prices, and to understand what the prices for different items are.
As they grow older, you can progress to more complex concepts, such as the need to compare prices and the importance of sticking to a budget. Furthermore, you can also ask them to help in managing your money during payment to strengthen their arithmetic skills.
If you shop in a place that doesn’t have fixed prices on items, like a morning market, you may want your older children to see you haggle too. In places like Malaysia, haggling can save them a few Ringgit, especially if they learn to do it with subtlety and charm.
Teaching Them About Grocery Shopping Responsibility
No matter where you do your grocery shopping, there are some basic ethics to adhere to. For example, in a supermarket, carts should be returned to their proper storage areas in front of the supermarket or at the parking lot. Set a good example for them by not leaving your shopping carts at undesignated areas.
Additionally, you children should not be careful when handling items that haven’t been purchased, such as not dropping and denting cans and not damaging fruits or vegetables. Sealed products should not be opened and should only be consumed after you’ve purchased them.
Teaching Them Ethical Social Interactions
When you’re shopping, there’s bound to be a crowd around at the supermarket, store or wet market. Therefore, social interactions are bound to happen. You can teach your children how to go about this in a polite and ethical manner.
For instance, they should learn to wait in line for the checkout counter patiently until their turn comes, and not cut queue. Additionally, they should also learn to speak politely to store staff or vendors if they need assistance or want to buy something.
Teaching Them Independence and Decision Making
Children will benefit in terms of their mental development when you allow them to make independent decisions. Of course, this should be a guided process where you ensure that they make reasonable ones.
\Even when they’re young, you can start them on helping you make a list of grocery items to buy. If they’re new to this, you can give them a choice between two similar items. For example, you can ask if they would like to buy orange juice or mixed fruit juice instead.
When you’re at the store, you may want to ask them to complete tasks or send them on simple errands, depending on their age. For example, younger children can be asked to pick which fresh vegetables to buy while older children can be sent to choose a carton of eggs.
Teaching Them About Diversity
Malaysia is a multi-racial and multi-cultural country. Therefore, one important lesson to impart to your children is tolerance and embracing diversity. A shopping trip is the best way to do this as you’ll be able to meet people of different backgrounds.
You can explain and discuss with your children about the people you meet, as well as their unique cultures. Additionally, you can also introduce them to the different food products of the various ethnic groups in Malaysia. This way, they will develop an interest and appreciation of other cultures while also empathizing with people.
Bonding over Grocery Shopping
While this isn’t a life lesson per se, it is still a key benefit of grocery shopping with your kids. When you set out to accomplish tasks with your children, you’re able to learn more about their personalities, character and preferences. In turn, they’re able to learn more about you too.
Grocery Shopping Doesn’t Need to Be a Chore
With careful planning, you can make your shopping trips with your children a fun learning experience. Eventually, they will be able to help you shop for the household too. Once they’re much older and reach their late teens, they can even go shopping for the household independently.
One must never underestimate the value of grocery shopping, as your children will one day have to run households of their own. No matter what gender they are, they need to be able to live independently, so starting them young is one effective strategy.
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