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Teens and Smoking
Cigarette smoking during childhood and adolescence leads to significant health problems, including cough and phlegm production, an increase in the number and severity of respiratory illnesses, decreased physical fitness, high cholesterol and very often lung cancer. Things become worse when an addiction forms, which often continues into adulthood.
Why do teens take up smoking?
Most teenagers don't know why they took to smoking. However, adolescents turn to tobacco for a variety of reasons:
- Sometimes it's a form of rebellion, the 'I don't care attitude',
- Maybe they just want to associate themselves with a particular group of friends, or start puffing under peer pressure.
- They may believe cigarettes will improve their concentration or help them lose weight.
- Low self - esteem.
- A parent or close relative smokes.
- Some teenagers see smoking as part of their identity. They think smoking may turn them more macho, independent.
Do not make the mistake of using smoking as a form of rebellion! You will only be at a loss:
Teenagers crave to be adults, to take their place in society and to be a full adult member. They take smoking as an adult activity. The reason teens smoke to be more adult is because rebelling is the sign of being an adult. Parents tell children not to smoke. Teenagers smoke to prove to their parents they have the authority to make their own choices.
A better way out is to teach them make good choices, let teens make their own choices and bear the consequences of their own mistakes.
Once taken a first puff, there is never a last puff !
- Cigarettes contain Nicotine which is extremely addictive in nature. Nicotine increases the release of a number of brain chemicals (neurotransmitters), which are associated with pleasure, a feeling of euphoria, appetite suppression and relaxation.
- Most adolescents believe they can quit smoking anytime they want. But they become just as addicted to nicotine as adults do. In fact, adolescents become addicted at relatively low doses of nicotine. A teenager who smokes just one cigarette a day may have withdrawal symptoms when he or she tries to quit.
Role of Parents!
- Talk about health consequences and the cost
- Chronic coughing
- Reduced stamina
- Bad breath
- Be a good model yourself
- Don't smoke in your children's presence.
- Avoid smoking in the house or car.
- Don't offer cigarettes to your children.
- Counter the smoking charisma
Lecturing or warning about the evils of tobacco does more harm than good. A better approach is to focus on problems that cigarettes may be causing them presently -
Another factor is the expense. The cost of a pack of cigarettes a day would buy two movie tickets or a pizza. Which is a better option?
If you smoke, quitting is one of the best things you can do to help keep your children off cigarettes.
If you can't, do the next best thing:
To counteract the glamourized image of cigarette smoking in advertisements and movies, show how smoking has affected the health of your relatives and friends. Show them that all ads carry a statutory warning about the ill effects of smoking.
Since smoking is highly addictive, ask yourself - 'What do I want to become in life - a smoker?'