Moms Talk: “The Nag Factor” — What’s your strategy for curtailing shopping-related tantrums?

A group of researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has conducted a scientific study about a powerful force nearly every parent has fought while running errands with the kids: “The Nag Factor.”

The catchy name pretty much speaks for itself, but as spelled out by the research team, The Nag Factor “is the tendency of children, who are bombarded with marketers’ messages, to unrelentingly request advertised items.” [Full disclosure: I work as a media relations rep at Johns Hopkins University, though I am not affiliated with the School of Public Health.]

The researchers wanted to find out how the kid-themed junk food wound up in the shopping cart when the kids obviously aren’t the ones buying the groceries. The 64 mothers of children ages 3 to 5 who were interviewed for the study said packaging, characters and commercials are the three main forces that fueled the nagging youngsters.

Of the strategies the moms in the study suggested they used to combat nagging, the 10 most frequently cited were included giving in, yelling, ignoring, distracting, staying calm and consistent, avoiding the commercial environment, negotiating and setting rules, allowing alternative items, explaining the reasoning behind choices, and limiting commercial exposure.

The moms went on to say that the most effective nag busters were limiting access to commercial characters and explaining why a parent was saying no to a purchase; giving in and buying the tantrum-triggering treat was seen as one of the worst routes to take.

In my experience, the coping strategies I’ve used have been a combination of saying no and explaining why and sometimes giving in. The first strategy is the one I use more often, and it’s usually something along the lines of, “No, we’re not buying that today because we still have the last treat you asked for in the cupboard at home”; or, “Wow, yes, I see that Lightning McQueen is on that box of cereal—he’s everywhere these days, isn’t he? But no, we aren’t buying any treats today, kiddo.” And then we roll on by.

But I do give in to buying something many times when we are in the store. Not because my daughter, who is my shopping buddy and always comes to the store with me, is big whiner and I’m trying to avoid a public freak out, but because I figure you can’t take a 3-year-old to the store and not expect her to be tempted by what she sees, and to act accordingly. Giving in at Wegmans usually means something with Elmo’s face on it, and lucky for me he tends to live on healthy (or healthier) snacks in the organic section of the store.

But when it comes to addressing childhood obesity, it’s important for parents to lock into the right shopping strategy to curb the nag-influenced purchases that could pack on the pounds.

There is potentially a lot more at stake in our responses than spending a few extra dollars at the store or running the risk of becoming a parental pushover.