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The best preventative measures that you can take as a
parent is to have the knowledge available with yourself to give to your
teen, about smoking. This will allow them to make a conscious decision
about what smoking does and causes. If you talk to them about this bad
habit, they are less likely to fall into the peer pressure of smoking.
One of the things that you can tell a teen which will help to
prevent them from smoking is to let them know what cigarettes are made
of and what chemicals they are inhaling. Tar is one of the chemicals
that are used for cigarettes. Another type of chemical used in
cigarettes is hydrogen cyanide. This is the same chemical that is used
to kill rats and was used during World War II to help with the mass
killings that were taking place. Benzene, a chemical used for gasoline,
is also in cigarettes. Acetone, a nail polish remover is another
chemical that is dominant in cigarettes. Nicotine, which is the chemical
that causes the addiction of tobacco, is also in cigarettes. If you tell
your teens what they are inhaling, it may help in preventing the
temptations of beginning to smoke by peers.
Another strategy that
can be used with knowledge to help your teenagers to stay away from
smoking is to be direct about what smoking can do to their health. Being
direct about facts that include death rates and smoke related illnesses
will help your children to recognize the down-falls of smoking. Lung
cancer, statistics on deaths from smoking, and health related issues
that are concerned with smoking can all be used as tools to help your
teenagers see the other side of what tobacco can cause.
Being a
youth is a time where self-image and self-esteem begin to develop. This
has caused tobacco use among teenagers to be an easy means for getting
youth addicted to smoking. Teenagers will look at media images, which
portray smoking as acceptable. They will then see this reflected through
peer groups. Often times’ youth will begin to smoke because of what they
see through the environment around them. You can easily move them away
from these images by helping teens to develop their own self-image and
confidence. By contradicting this image with allowing them to see their
own self-confidence and move away from the idea of what smoking means as
portrayed by others, it will be easier for them to say no.
One of
the major reasons why teenagers begin to smoke is because of the peer
pressure that is consistently around them to try smoking. Because of
this, you should think of effective methods to go against the peer
pressure around them. For example, you can help your teenager to stay
away from smoking as a habit by practicing situations and scenarios with
them that will allow them to learn to say no and build their self-image.
Role playing and discussing different ways for them to overcome peer
pressure will help your teenager to learn an alternative method to being
pressured into smoking
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