Smoking

Re: Smoking


I don't know what others may think or what to tell you about avoiding it but for me the line was very clear and it was the 8th to 9th grade transition.

In 7th grade (I didn't go to 8th) most of my peers thought smoking and drugs were not cool.

In 9th grade this stigma was almost completely gone. I remember thinking it was quite weird how quickly the change happened.

Anything your parents are dead set against is cool.

one method of convincing your child not to smoke is to expose them reguaily to a smokers environment.

A better method is tell em, "sure Ok you can smoke if you want to, when your old enough, it's your decision to turn your lungs black and have smelly breath, not be ale to perform athletically etc etc.

Choice of negative should be considered carefully in light of what the kid is interested in.

I grew up in the 60s when EVERYbody smoked and I've had an on again off again on again off again affair with nicotine. So I'm not sure if the "go ahead and smoke" theory works for everyone. Maybe these days where you can't smoke anywhere and people call you names if you smoke (at least where I live) that isn't such a problem. Plus, smoking now seems a rich man's game.

9th grade sounds about right. Is there something happening with your brain at that point that makes you succeptable to risk?

I was about that age when I tried ingesting some things that I don't really want to mention.

I think what saved my kids from becoming smokers was that their
grandfathers smoked. It wasn't a particularly cool sight (or smell) in
either case.

That's a really interesting question, Boom.

Well, we all know for sure that growing up around smokers sets us up for a higher risk for smoking than if our parents and family and friends don't smoke.

As a kid, I was the most opposed to smoking that a kid could be. I hated that my parents and family smoked. EVERYONE smoked, and it wasn't the sixties. Every friend of mine - and no they were not some weird minority - smoked at an early age.

Later, when I started smoking at 21 no less - you can bet your ass my family used that to make fun of me for it. And I started smoking in secret from them.

They made jokes at me - but they also bummed me smokes, and insisted I smoke in their presence and not hide it. So what kind of message is that?

At the last family gathering of women, a new annual retreat we have for all the aunts and cousins, it became apparent that yet another of my female cousins has started.

In this day and age, at 20! Very similar pattern to me, once she flew the nest and got doing her own thing, she started. But not before.

I think girls and boys are different animals when it comes to smoking. For sure, a girl whose mom has or does smoke is at a very high risk to start.
And maybe not as early as you'd think now - because now we know all the risks, we know it's absurdly stupid, but that doesn't stop a lot of girls this age to start.

They were doing the same thing with my cousin, bumming her smokes while jazzing her. Stupid!

There is only one, ONE, female girl left who hasn't started, and she is 19. She is still in hating it mode, however, her mom doesn't smoke.
I am hoping she will be the one to NEVER put a smoke in her mouth.

Keeping the things out of their mouths that first time is the most important thing.

Anyone who has or does smoke knows we didn't enjoy that first one - we had to force it, it took work to choke it down.

I think that part of what happens is that smaller kids are successfully spooked at the whole "black lung" kind of thing. They think it's horrible and scary and basically that you'll die if you do it.

Then about 9th grade or so is when kids get into a major re-assessment of what they've learned so far -- part of the maturation process. C'mon, does everyone die if they smoke? No. Look at that girl over there, she smokes and she's gorgeous and healthy. Maybe my parents/ school/ after school specials exaggerated?

And they're off.

What I remember from high school was a smoking = thin correlation, too. For the girls anyway.

I think you're right about teenage brains and risk, too. I know teenage brains are goofy in several ways, forget details right now. There was something in the NYT science section about that at some point, I can try to track it down.

What worked for me is basically stubborn-ness. I've always automatically pushed back when I feel pressured. (I can override that if need be but it's my reflex.) So the first time I was offered a cigarette (actually a joint first I think) I pushed back. Then pushed back more the next time, then got cemented into it at some point along the line, a point of pride. (Interestingly, I did get positive feedback for it from peers, which is not something controllable but useful. And since my friends all smoked various substances it came up a lot -- definitely got respect for being "tough" about it, especially as they tried to quit smoking cigarettes.) (Though there is the second-hand smoke issue, especially at parties.)

I think the stubborn-ness was helped along by my parents and my school -- the teachers wearing "question authority" t-shirts, that kind of thing.



My approach with sozlet (thus far):

Answer all questions about cigarettes as honestly as possible (dlowan's avatar started one early discussion!)

Encourage independence/ freedom from peer pressure where possible.

Hmm, that's all I can think of.

I'm definitely worried about entering that phase. I never did nothin', but E.G.... whew.

She takes after each of us in different ways and I have no idea which way this one will go.

I grew up in a family that loved tobacco. In the evening, the adults sat around in the living room, lighting up one after the other. The air was perpetual blue. They thought it was cute when I would make a corncob pipe, and then smoke their butts. By the age of 23, I began to have ambivelant thoughts about it, but, I was fifty before I managed to kick the habit. The damage was done, for my own children. Three of the four are smokers.

As George mentioned, not only directly but in the "if you can't be a good example, be a horrible warning" sense -- my dad smoked pot and I hated it. Cigarettes weren't an issue but they were linked in my mind.

I'm not sure that it is strictly growing up around smokers that make one a smoker. There is a lot of evidence that it is partly genetic (http://www.nida.nih.gov/NIDA_Notes/NNVol15N2/Evidence.html), almost a self-medicating behavior.

Your family really does send a weird message about it with their teasing acceptance. Maybe they do it to feel better about themselves.

George, I'm curious, did your kids talk to you about their grandfather's smoking? My brother is the only one in my family who has never smoked, not even once as far as I know. He told me that it was hard to talk to his daughter about our parent's smoking because he didn't want her to see them as being bad/stupid/weak/whatever people.

Soz, you remind me of my brother but coming from the opposite direction. He too was a trend bucker: he graduated from HS in 1973 (I think), the hey-day of hippiedom and he went off to be a soldier. Maybe that was the 1973 version of "question authority".....

If you find that article I would be interested in reading it!

edgar, your family sounds like my family. I remember the blue cloud hovering over every family get together. It really was different then, though, everybody smoked and nobody thought much about it. Everyone on TV smoked. Everyone in the movies smoked. If they didn't they certainly didn't complain about those that did. Doctors advertised cigarettes. I remember being a very little kid and walking to the corner store to buy my parents smokes -- nobody even questioned little kids buying cigarettes.

In the 1960s, even the Flintstones smoked. Their brand: Winston. Because: "Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should."

I think a lot of the reasons someone starts, and keeps going, are in the head.

It's an addiction but it isn't when we first start.

We start because of brainwashing. I'm totally convinced of that.

The brainwashing mixed with often teenage "i'm the exception to every rule, special" is a bad mix.

Gee, this cigarette tastes like ****. So I won't get addicted! I'll stop whenever I want.

That's the problem with teenagers, I've found. They just don't get what addiction is really about. And why would they? They've never been addicted.

I think maybe why some honestly don't smoke because they've seen smokers isn't because they have seen smokers, necessarily, but because they started to see honestly how pathetic addiction really is.

sorry for rambling

yep, it's the right age to snub risk and the right age to want to begin to self-medicate. Nicotine has a calming effect (after a slight buzz) and kids that age are incredibly agitated. As with any habit, some get addicted and some don't. I too have a casual relationship with nicotine, have had since I was a teen. I have two sisters, however, with a 2-3 pack/day habit. No telling really who's going to get hooked and who isn't.

Found this (not sure if it's THE article, but AN article, and interesting):

"Teenage Risks, and How to Avoid Them" by Jane Brody

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/health/18brod.html

I can't really answer, because I thought smoking was cool and had never hated it. I started at 19, in 1961; quit cold for several months in about 1975 (by then I knew it wasn't smart for health), started again, quit cold again in 1982, when I was 40. That time it worked.

My mother didn't smoke, father smoked pipes and cigars. I was more affected by peer group/movies et al, when I started. Plus, with working and university at the same time, I was frazzled and I found out cigarettes calmed me. Or so I thought, but the calming effect was temporary. Once I did quit, I suddenly became a less frazzled person, though I had just as much going on in my life.

My niece doesn't smoke... yet. She's 20. Knock on wood.

Boomer, you have mentioned second hand smoke and its risk.

My father was a heavy smoker and he died at 53--although it might also have been related to asbestos--he worked on submarines during WWII.
My mother remarried a pipe smoker, a wonderful man and pipe smoke can be very pleasant.

My mother who had never smoked, died of lung cancer. I'm convinced it was all those years of second hand smoke.

From the link --


and...



This helps explain why D.A.R.E. - type programs have been proven to be ineffective and addressing an alternative for those behaviors that result from a wink-wink-nod-nod parental attitude, but doesn't address the exposure and cultural attraction to things like drugs and cigarettes that are available to kids regardless of whether they are available at home.

Yeah, yeah, second hand smoke. I was truly of the second hand smoke generation. Wasn't it the 60s when women (got their own cigarette now, baby, you've come a long long way) started smoking in equal numbers to men?

I remember blue cloud car trips and blue cloud holiday dinners and I grew up to work and play in blue cloud bars and restaurants. The high schools had "smoke holes". In college they even had ashtrays on the desks.

Do you get nicotine from second hand smoke or just by products of smoke?

Hmmm......

Huh. It appears that it does.



Maybe our parents were medicating us into a calm state by smoking around us all the time.

Us three kids had earaches a lot. Also strep throat and tonsillitis, sometimes all at the same time.

When the earaches were particularly bad, Dad would sit on the side of the bed smoking. I'd lay my head in his lap, with the worse ear up. He'd lean down and blow warm smoke in my ear. After a while, the pain would dull. Nicotine's an anaesthetic.

And being cradled and warmed by your father is a pretty good soother too.

Despite the fact that he never could quit, it wasn't lung cancer that took him.