Are Your Kids Passive Smokers?

Kids

oi-Anwesha

By Anwesha Barari

Wednesday, June 6, 2012, 12:11

Passive smoking is worse than active smoking. If you are a smoker, you inhale that poison into your body because you are addicted. You have a choice and you exercise it. But, a passive smoker has no choice but to inhale this poison from the air. The situation is worse when it comes to kids. They do not even know the magnitude of harm that is happening to their body.

So, when it comes to parents smoking in front of their kids or away from them, there are some vital points to consider. If your kids are passive smokers because of you or anybody else, then here are some facts you must know.

What If Your Kids Are Passive Smokers?

1. No one will advise you to smoke in front of your kids. The worst kind of passive smoking comes from their own parents. But, even if you do not smoke in front of them, that is not enough. You must not smoke at all when you are home. Your kids are smart enough to pick up the whiff of nicotine in the bathroom.

2. That brings us to our second point. Parents smoking has a profound psychological effect on kids. When they are small, they might try to imitate you with pens in their mouth. As adolescents, they might want to do the real thing. Would you like it if your kid starts smoking because of you?

3. Kids look up to their parents for everything. If parents are smoking, they tend to believe that it might be a style statement or may not be all that bad to smoke. This eventually makes kids get addicted to smoking at an early age.

4. Now let us take the eventuality that your child actually starts smoking in his or her teens. You will obviously have to try ways and means to wean them from this bad habit. But if you are a smoker yourself, what will you tell your kids? 'It is alright for Daddy to smoke but you can't!' They simply would not buy it.

5. Passive smoking is not only an emotional but also a health problem for your kids. If your child develops chronic asthma or other serious respiratory diseases then you will be blamed for it.

6. If it is not you and some other member of the family who smokes in front of your kids, then you need to take it seriously. You need to have a one on one chat with this family and tell them that they cannot smoke at home.

Do you have any other parenting tips to stop your kids from becoming passive smokers?