Talking To Young Adults About Smoking &Tobacco Prevention

Movies, shows, and online content often depict smoking as a cool thing to do. But parents and adults need to remember that they are the most powerful influence in a child’s life. What they speak and teach will have the maximum force. Here’s how you can talk to children on the topic of addiction.
1. Be direct and honest. Tell them you don’t want them to use tobacco in any form, be it cigarettes, vapes or juuling.
2. While laying down the law, explain to them the risks that come with these products. Be clear, precise, and consistent. Make them aware of the chemicals vapes and juuls have and how they adversely affect health.
3. It is never too early to start talking about smoking. Begin when the child is about 6 years old and keep on talking about it intermittently until they are in high school.
4. Children can start smoking as early as 11 years and be completely addicted when they are 14. Explaining the grave health dangers and almost fatal outcomes can prevent addiction.
5. Emphasise on the physical aspects of smoking like yellow teeth, bad nails, and bad breaths. It will appeal to the vanity of the kid and stop them from smoking.
6. From 2017 to 2018, the use of e-cigarettes has gone up 78% in US high schools alone. They have become an epidemic. Teens don’t recognize that they have the same damaging impact as combustible cigarettes.
7. If there is an adult in the house who smokes, they should quit smoking immediately. Moreover, talk to the children about how hard it is to stop smoking, and life would have been much easier if they hadn’t started in the first place.
8. If the adult is unable to quit smoking, then do not ever leave cigarettes around the house where kids can find them. Over that make the inside of the home a smoke-free zone. Allow no one to smoke within the four walls of the house.
9. Find a school that supports being tobacco-free and has health program initiatives that aid in addiction prevention.
10. If you do find that your child has been vaping, juuling, or smoking tobacco, don’t throw a fit. Ask them calmly the reasons why they did it. Talk to them about it and then explain the diseases they can catch because of it.