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Parents can
substantially reduce the odds their child will smoke.
What
Parents Can Do to
Keeping Your Kids From Starting?
Concerned parents may have
more influence over whether their children take up smoking than they
think they do. In a recent study, teens who thought their parents
would disapprove of them smoking were less than half as likely to
smoke as those who thought their parents didn’t care. This held true
regardless of whether or not the parents were smokers themselves.
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"Parents are the single most important influence on
children's decision to smoke, drink or use drugs, yet many
parents do not fully understand the extent of their
influence." |
The CDC offers the following
tips for parents to help them keep their kids smoke-free:
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Remember that despite the
impact of movies, music, and TV, parents can be THE GREATEST
INFLUENCE in their kids' lives.
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Talk directly to your
children about the risks of tobacco use; if friends or relatives
suffer with or died from tobacco-related illnesses, let your
kids know. Let them know it strains the heart, damages the
lungs, and can cause a lot of other problems, including cancer.
That’s not even mentioning what it can do to appearance: making
hair and clothes stink, causing bad breath, and staining teeth
and fingernails.
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If you use tobacco, you
can still make a difference. Your best move, of course, is to
try to quit. Meanwhile, don't smoke or use tobacco in your
children’s presence, don't offer it to them, and don't leave it
where they can easily get it.
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Start talking about
tobacco use when your children are 5 or 6 years old and continue
through their high school years. Many kids start using tobacco
by age 11. Many are addicted by age 14.
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Know if your kids' friends
use tobacco. Talk about ways to refuse tobacco.
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Discuss with kids the
false glamorization of tobacco on billboards and in other media,
such as movies, TV, and magazines.
If you are a smoker yourself
and don't want your children to start, know that you probably won't
have any less influence on your child's decision, and may even have
more, because you've been there. You can speak to your child
firsthand about:
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how you got started
smoking and what you thought about it at the time
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how hard it is to quit
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how it has affected your
health
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what it costs you,
financially and socially
(Continue)
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