Parents: No. 1 influence on their children’s smoking

Parents are the single most important influence on their children’s decision to smoke, drink, or use drugs, yet many parents do not fully understand the extent of their influence.

— Philip Morris USA, www.pmusa.com

Both my grandfathers smoked and I remember reams of Dunhill and Kent stacked in their freezers. Those red and gold boxes seemed like elegant treats. Both my parents smoked. I remember their packs of Marlboro Reds on the dresser, on the kitchen counter, on the dining table. Puffs of cigarette smoke, mixed with perfume, circled their bedrooms. My two brothers and I smoked, until my second brother, the heaviest smoker, quit six years ago. My dad has cut down to about three sticks a day and my mom has quit for the nth time. But no one knows when she will light up again. We have all learned that smoking is bad for our health a little too late.

"Once a smoker, always a smoker," my cousin used to say. That means that nicotine in our blood keeps hankering for more. And I envy my friends who never puffed a cigarette in their lives. They are the ones who will never understand how hard it is to quit. I lit up a stick from my parents’ pack when I was in high school and fell ill. It wasn’t until college that I really started smoking. My best friend was a smoker, it was cool to smoke then, I guess, and it was a glamorous way to assert how grown-up I was. It was also an accepted way to cope with our thesis, and then with dealing with my new job abroad. Plus, it was the greatest bonding activity with all my relatives who smoked and drank, and laughed and sang our worries away.

It has been so hard to quit, in spite of all the information that smoking will kill and those graphic photos of decayed smoker’s lungs. This is because, like all the smokers in this world, I smoked when I was sad, when I was happy. I smoked when I was stressed, when I was relaxed, when it was cold or when it was hot, when I got hungry and again, when I was full. That is how nicotine hooks you, you can’t function without it.

My maternal grandfather died of emphysema and we saw his struggle with the respirator as his lungs failed. I have quit .... and quit again. I guess the addiction side of it has been hardest to break. It has not been easy to just put my foot down (and stay down) because I still have the urge to light up. But I have stayed relatively nicotine-free for two years now.

If emphysema, collapsed lungs, heart problems and other health complications were not enough to make me quit, my teenaged son’s virgin lungs sure were my biggest incentives. The thought of his puffing poison into all those healthy bronchi was torture to me. The children now learn about the perils of smoking early. He used to ask me why I smoked, that he did not want me to die early. I stressed to him that it was very hard to quit, that he should never start lest he got hooked. But I realized that the only significant way to deliver that message is to quit. And that I better quit fast because he was approaching adolescence.

According to the Philip Morris study, Mom’s and Dad’s smoking habits are the biggest factor in children delaying smoking or never starting at all. Over 60 percent of smokers under age 19 are children of parents who smoke (70 percent for girls and 54 percent of boys). Only 35 percent of the smokers under 19 are children of nonsmokers.

Today, there are both unlimited opportunities and unthinkable dangers within the reach of our children. Kids understand that smoking is dangerous, but many of them try it anyway because of curiosity, peer pressure, low self-esteem, the need to establish their own independent identities, and to rebel against parental authority.

Contrary to popular belief, many teens and young adolescents look to parents for guidance about smoking, drinking and doing drugs, according to a new study that gauged teens’ acceptance of parental authority. Adolescents don’t want parents to tell them how to dress or what kind of music to listen to – but they do want and need parental involvement in many other aspects of their lives, including alcohol and tobacco use.

Talk to your child about smoking. To start with, even the youngest child can understand that smoking is bad for your body. Young children also imitate their parents, so if you smoke, quit. Kids want to be like their parents, so setting an example is vitally important.

Tips For Parents

Below are some tips for improving communication about tobacco products:

• Establish firm rules that exclude smoking from your house and explain why: Smokers are unhealthy, smell bad, look bad, and feel bad. If you smoke, (and can’t quit yet) do not glamorize the habit. Be an outcast. I used to smoke in the hottest, mosquito-filled balcony of our house, to save my kids from second-hand smoke.

• Teach children from an early age about the differences between images used by advertisers of tobacco products and reality of the bad effects of smoking. Explain to them that tobacco is a billion-dollar industry and they will do anything to hook new smokers. Teaching media literacy (helping your kids become critical consumers) is an important parenting task.

• As children grow older, steer them toward positive role models in entertainment or sports who don’t smoke, and continue to compare images in movies or television of heroes who smoke with what smoking does to real people.

• Provide them with activities and sports that discourage smoking. My son’s involvement in varsity basketball values his stamina that can be ruined by smoking. Nonsmoking friends also help keep your teen smoke-free.

• Make it part of your daily routine to sit and talk with your kid. Don’t avoid subjects because you might find them uncomfortable or you’re afraid you don’t know just the right words.

• By sharing time with child and valuing his opinions and ideas, you help build his self-confidence and self-worth — qualities that will help him combat subtle advertising messages that promote rebellion and being cool above all. Kids who believe in themselves and have support at home may be better able to reject these messages.

• The need to be socially accepted often increases as kids approach their teens. But if you’ve equipped your child with the facts about tobacco’s dangers and helped him develop healthy self-esteem, he won’t want to smoke or use smokeless tobacco. What he probably will want is simply to be accepted by his peers.

• Teach your child to say no. To help your teen, talk to him about how to respond to those who encourage him to light up. Responses may range from simply saying "no" to excuses about smoking being a waste of money. My son still quotes the Yosi kadiri campaign. I also told him to tell his friends how hard it was for me to quit.

• When discussing these issues with your teen, be a patient listener. Don’t expect teens to be consistent, logical, articulate, or even conscious of the reasons why they do things. It will take time to develop a defensible position against smoking.

In my many attempts to quit, my son saw me fail, hide, sneak – it was so embarrassing. But he also saw the great struggle coming off the nicotine hook. I took it as a chance to show him, on one hand, the frailty of my will versus a physical addiction and, on the other, character in trying again and integrity in commitment. My only hope is that this struggle to quit will help deter him from lighting up.

Developed countries have significantly discouraged their young to start smoking. It is sad that for developing countries, though, adolescent smoking may be on the rise, because this is where the tobacco advertising turned to target. Nevertheless, this is still a good time to kick the habit and help the future generation live fuller, tobacco-addiction-free lives.