15 year old son smoking

littlebitdull

I know I cant really stop him, short of locking him up in the house. Which I am not about to do.

So any advice on how I can stop this. I am an ex smoker myself and remember how hard it is to give the damb things up. Dont want to have to see my child go through the same thing.

KTRIC

Bring him to the cancer ward in St.James's Hospital and show him the middle aged people that can't talk because their larynx's have been removed.

That should scare some sh!t into him and may, just maybe change his mind about smoking.

joflor

give him twenty fags to smoke one after another then bring him to the cancer ward

Nevyn

Well where is he getting the money from ?

What incentives can you give him to not smoke until he is 18 ?

littlebitdull

KTRIC wrote:

Bring him to the cancer ward in St.James's Hospital and show him the middle aged people that can't talk because their larynx's have been removed.

That should scare some sh!t into him and may, just maybe change his mind about smoking.

I smoked for 20 years - even at aged 30 (when I eventually did stop) this would not have worked for me. Nor for any smoker I know. I would guess this is a non smoker who posted this.

We are restricting his money. Bad enough he smokes but no way are we going to pay for it

I am hoping that he will never smoke, not just leave it out till he is eighteen, at which point he will still be in school anyway.

Nevyn

offer a bribe, a large incentive if he will not smoke until he has finished secondary school.
A trip away or somthing he wants.

hawker27

15 yrs old smoking thats a doddle,neighbours kids near me are smoking and there 11 yrs old.

someone told me that this is cool now in 2006.

Ciaran500

Thaedydal wrote:

offer a bribe, a large incentive if he will not smoke until he has finished secondary school.
A trip away or somthing he wants.

Its been 4 years since I was 15 but I know this wouldn't work for nearly everyone I know including me. The only way it will work is if he decides himself he doesn't or shouldn't be smoking. Sorry can't really offer advice on how to do that though

LegacyUser

I started smoking at 16....but I had given them up at 23.....and that was 6 years ago.

What got into my head was a story I heard of a 27 year old woman who smoked since she was 13.......at 25 she was diagnosed with emphazema which resulted in one of her lungs being removed.Becasue of that she could not even walk up half a flight of stairs without needing a rest....she couldnt do any sort of physical activity...it was just a shocking standard of life this woman had and so so young....but it was enough to shock me into giving up smoking.

shock tactics do work!!!:eek:

take a lighted ciggie....take a drag and when the filter stains...squeeze it tight between your tumb and forefinger and show your son what oozes out. this is the crap that attaches to yuor lungs....and Idoes cause cancer!!!

dr.bollocko

I dont think a 15 year old smoker is gonna be scared straight by assuring him that yes, in fact smoking does cause cancer.
I seem to recall I have heard that somewhere else before.
Its a tough one to call. I mean I smoked at 15. I still smoke now from time to time. Its hard to see what would stop him except his own conviction.

Devon

Talk to him and find out why he's doing it?

lostexpectation

how often does he smoke, go for run with him, does he do any sports?

Cutie18Ireland

My little sister is 13 and smoking, even after a close relative died and smoking paid a big part to it, she claims she has stopped now but how do u ever know? u cant watch them 24/7.
The twenty in a row will make him puke and probably stop smoking if i find out my sis is smoking again that's what i'll be doing.

luckat

There was a good Horizon programme called We Love Cigarettes. You might be able to source a copy.

One of the things mentioned on it was the famous Doll & Hill study of male doctors, which caused thousands of doctors to give up smoking when they realised that it didn't just kill patients, it killed doctors!

Another is a striking image of a doctor removing a long toothpaste-shaped tube of waxy material from inside the heart artery of a smoker.

By the way, a group of doctors are doing a follow-up study on Doll & Hill at the moment, tracking the relationship between smoking and dementia.

But apart from all this, I suspect that he's copying some older, 'cooler' friend, and you have to subvert that if you want to stop him now.

(I assume smoking's banned inside the house and he has to go and stand in the rain to do it?)

littlebitdull

Smoking is indeed banned in my house. I am an ex smoker so it would be like a herion addict allowing someone to shoot up in their home !!

Also my husband is missing part of a lung - due to an illness (he has never ever smoked) - so no way would I allow anyone to smoke near him. Some things are too precious to risk losing !!

Sam Vimes

joflor wrote:

give him twenty fags to smoke one after another then bring him to the cancer ward

that will make him sick but also increase his body's addiction to them. not a good idea imo.

probably not a whole lot you can do about it unfortunuately. at 15 nothing my mother said would stop me doing anything i wanted. maybe stop giving him money altogether

el Bastardo

Started meself when I was 14, finally quit for good a few years ago. Why? Because I couldn't 'run for the bus'. I know that when I was 15, shock tactics didn't work but having no money definitely curtailed the habit.

is_that_so

Yeah threats don't work. You seem to be doing all you can. The only other thing you can do is try to educate him on the effects. The more "reasonable" you appear the more of a chance you have of getting through to him. He'll make his own decisions at that age.

TargetWidow

You must be very worried. I know it's probably not much help to you as the other previous posters have said I started at 18 and quit at 24 (dose of Plurasy did it for me!). I feel terrible about the worry I must have put my parents through now. There isn't much you can do but it is illegal for anyone to sell cigarettes to under agers. The shop can be prosecuted. There is an outlet in my town of origin that has broken open packets to sell them singly to children since I was in national school.

It was common knowledge amongst the kids (the shop is directly across from the school), and I can only assume the adults. I recently commented on the fact to a woman whose daughter now attends that school and was laughing at the sticker on the window saying they wouldn't sell to under age kids saying wont sell- my backside, they'll virtually light it for you! She informed me that the same shop still sells them singly. No-one has ever reported it. I think I should.

So maybe you could get the shop prosecuted. That and cut the pocket money out altogether. There has to be boundaries and consequences. I waited till 18 BECAUSE the rule was if you drank or smoked before 18 you were homeless (enforced by chucking an older brother out for drinking!). Teenagers really do understand when you are serious about house rules! Being 15 there will no doubt be a bit of drama about the loss of pocket money, but they'll get over it if you don't get in there with the argument and just move on.

On the other hand they might go off and get a part time job and there isn't much you can do about that either. At least he's learning to work towards what he wants and he'll have less time to smoke! Good luck with it whatever you do, sure, you can only do your best and it sounds like you are already doing that.

vincenzo1975

show him the maths of it, If he keeps it up, in a year or two he'll be upto 1 pack a day for 365 days in a years, whats that ,about €2500?

how many CD's, games, concerts, clothes could he get for that??

Stop being a source of money for him to buy them.

Chances are, his mates/girlfreind are all smoking too and this is just to fit in and not be odd. Tell him it is cool mto be the individual rather then the sheep.

If he's into music, try to find some role models that he likes that dont smoke, they dont smoke, they're cool?

Next parent - teacher meeting, or even sooner, contact the school principle to see if they could do an anti smoking campaign/awarness program in the school.

some helpful websites for you and him: my advice would be send him an email with the links and let him look it up for himself. His curiosity will get the better of him and he will eventually read up, might hit home hte message stronger. Remem,ber, when most of us parents were teenagers, we did not have the web info available at our fingertips, if he starts to independently look up this info, he may take it on board as not being preached at. You may not even know he read up on them, but there's a good chance he will. Let him know theres some gory pictures in the websites, a teen wont be able to resist the shock factor.

http://www.funis2cool.com/?p=1644

http://stopsmokingpad.com/_wsn/page5.html

http://parentingteens.about.com/cs/teenssmoking/a/teen_3_smoking.htm

http://www.youngwomenshealth.org/smokeinfo.html

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_10_14_How_to_Fight_Teen_Smoking.asp

http://www.raisingkids.co.uk/health/tee_hr06.asp

dr.bollocko

Two year old post no? Wonder what happened the kid.

vincenzo1975

D'oh......
didnt cop this was 2 yrs old, maybe I send her a PM to see what happened?

LivingDeadGirl

Stop giving him money, his friends will only let him bum off them for so long.

miss no stars

teenagers don't think long term. Here's how to make them.

Tell them to look 30 years into the future, they're mid 40s and have kids.

at least 2 kids, a spouse, a big mortgage

Do the maths for them on how much that costs

Ask them if, at that point, they'd like to develop cancer, leave the family on the breadline and then potentially die, leaving spouse a single parent and kids without mom/dad.

Ask if they want to inflict that on the people they will have brought into their life. Then offer a simple way of reducing that risk - stop smoking. Buy them nicorette or whatever they want to quit.

littlebitdull

Would you believe that as of this week he is stopped three weeks.

At the end of day it was nothing we did.

We never let him smoke in the house, or around the house. But when your kid is older, there is nothing much you can do ... you just do whatever little you can.

His girlfriend never liked the smoking either, but even she could not influence him ...

but one day it just dawned on him that he wanted to stop. And thats what made the difference. He WANTED to do it.



I can only hoped it lasts ....

littlebitdull

miss no stars wrote: »

teenagers don't think long term. Here's how to make them.

Tell them to look 30 years into the future, they're mid 40s and have kids.

at least 2 kids, a spouse, a big mortgage

Do the maths for them on how much that costs

Ask them if, at that point, they'd like to develop cancer, leave the family on the breadline and then potentially die, leaving spouse a single parent and kids without mom/dad.

Ask if they want to inflict that on the people they will have brought into their life. Then offer a simple way of reducing that risk - stop smoking. Buy them nicorette or whatever they want to quit.

Think back to when you were a teenager .... time is meaningless to you. You dont/cant think ahead .. you are living in the now. 30 years in the future is forever when you're 15/16/17 - sure you're old then ! why would you want to do anything!!

TargetWidow

Yay! Good for you Littlebitdull! And for your son! Nice to hear some good news.:D

vincenzo1975

fairf play, this thread must have a bit of Faith in it.

Hope he gets all the support in the world, tell him he smells great....haha

miss no stars

littlebitdull wrote: »

Think back to when you were a teenager .... time is meaningless to you. You dont/cant think ahead .. you are living in the now. 30 years in the future is forever when you're 15/16/17 - sure you're old then ! why would you want to do anything!!

I'm only 20, I've a 16yo brother....