"Every time we go to a store, my child pesters me to buy her something."

Sure, there was always candy in the checkout aisle, but toys, stuffed animals and DVDs now show up in places that they never used to be, like the supermarket and the pharmacy. "I'm in the 'no-zone' for much of the day," says Ted Wilson of Arlington , Massachusetts , about going out with his daughter, Jaime, 7.

How to handle it: Some parents try to schedule their shopping at times when they don't have to bring their kids. Others set clear ground rules (saying, for instance, "We're not buying anything that's not on our list") and hold firm even if their child has a major temper tantrum.

A middle ground some moms swear by is to limit your child to one inexpensive purchase a trip. The payoff: Making the decision about what that item will be may engage your child long enough to stave off more requests.

Wilson has recently begun an inoculation campaign with his daughter. "I plan shopping trips to see what her cousins might like for their birthdays," he says. "And I tell Jaime at the start that we're not buying anything for her that day, so she gets used to coming out of the store without something new."

The key is to build up these non-purchasing habits so that your child doesn't expect you to shell out for a stuffed animal every time you take him to the zoo. That's what Juliet Schor, author of Born to Buy , has done with her kids, ages 10 and 13. "When they were little, we almost never bought them souvenirs, so at this point our kids are so used to the way we do these things that they don't even bother to ask," she says.