ShareThisBy JOHN HOLLAND
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Three-year-old Kevin Creed went looking for trouble in a Sears store in Idaho nearly 50 years ago.
He dashed away from his older brother, climbed onto a mannequin stand and ducked under the skirt on display.
"As I rounded the corner," recalled his mother, Merry Creed, now of Sonora, Calif., "all I could see were these two little legs in jeans, sticking out from the mannequin's skirt. I almost fainted."
Plenty of parents have tales to tell about children running off in department stores, screaming in grocery aisles or otherwise turning shopping into an ordeal.
It's a challenge as well for the store owners. They like to have young families as customers but also must keep them from breaking the merchandise or disturbing other shoppers.
Businesses have come up with several ways to deal with the issue.
Vintage Faire Mall in Modesto, Calif., and some other shopping centers have play areas where antsy children can blow off energy - or be rewarded for behaving in the stores.
The only drawback is the occasional parent who leaves a child unsupervised in the area, said Adrenna Alkhas, assistant marketing manager at Vintage Faire.
Some grocers provide little carts for children to push, or full-size carts with kid seats shaped like police cars or fire engines.
Others offer free cookies. About a quarter of Raley's stores have free child care.
"It's a great convenience for people because it gives their children something fun to do while the parents shop," Raley's spokeswoman Jennifer Ortega said of the chain's Play Care rooms.
Children 2 to 8 can use the rooms, which are stocked with toys, books and videos. The employees who watch them have had background checks and first-aid training.
"It's less stress while shopping," said Melanie Nunes of Oakdale, Calif., who used the service in Turlock for the first time last week for son Kobe and daughter Kylie. "And it's more fun for them."
The Play Care in Turlock is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. Parents must sign their children in and out, and they cannot leave the store without them.
The Dented Chef, a kitchen supply store in downtown Modesto, has had little trouble with rambunctious children, co-owner Judi Rackley said.
She said they tend to behave if their parents use the visit as a chance to teach them about cooking.
"Bring them in on it, and that makes it easier," she said. "You need to make it a family thing."
The American Academy of Pediatrics offers similar advice: A mother comparing prices on blouses, for example, might turn the trip into a fun math lesson.
But kids will be kids - stubborn and demanding at times - and a firm stance can be needed.
Billie Costa of Modesto recalled taking a preschool granddaughter to a market. The girl got to have an ice cream treat but refused for several minutes to pick a flavor. Her grandmother finally told her that they were leaving.
"She screamed all the way through checkout and all the way to the car," Costa said.
But that firmness paid off, she said: The girl never hesitated to quickly choose her treat on future visits.
Merry Creed, the survivor of the mannequin incident, said shopping with children is "a feat that only the brave or crazy will try."
But she also said they can learn to be good.
"Kids understand a lot more than we give them credit for," she said. "I think you just need to explain to them that they are out in public and that's how you act."
