My son will be 13 at the end of December and in the past three weeks I have found out that he tried drinking and now he is experimenting with smoking. I have talked to him several times but he just gives me the "I just wanted to see what it was like". He is ADHD and ODD and my fear is that next it will be drugs. I am a stay at home mom so I am around all the time. What to do?
Take him to a AA Meeting. Let him see where he will be years from now if he continues down this "Experimenting Road". I got drug to one when I was 15- caught drinking. Scared the daylights out of me. It might work for him. But don't take this lying down. I have to visit someone very close to me at FCC, because she just wanted to experiment and see what it was like. Good luck to you!
Try having him hold his nose and breath thru a straw for 60 seconds. If he is like most children I taught they become a bit out of breath or cannot complete the 60 seconds. Not a good feeling and smoking can lead to feeling out of breath. That is how someone with emphosema feels all the time as well as someone with asthsma feels when they have an attack. Smoking leads to emphosema. That feeling is also how a fetus feels if the mother smokes.
You might also get someone he respects who does not smoke or quit for health reasons to talk with him about this. This is a very hard tome for boys.
Although my husband and I are smokers (we do not smoke in our home) we have dicussed the importance of never smoking to our children, ages 6, 13 & 15. They have witnessed me trying to quit and have seen me struggle with it a few times. We have explained the numerous health risks, the fact that nicotine is a "drug" and have also reminded them that underage/public smoking is against the law. They know that should we ever find that they are smoking they will be on "lock down" and that their allowances will be suspended until we feel we can trust them to make better choices. We have also enlightened them to the home drug testing kits and have made it very clear that we will not hesitate to purchase them should we have any reason to think they have/are involved with drugs.
We have also told them that we realize that our firm stance on smoking sounds hypocritical since we both do it but that we are prepared to do anything necessary to help them avoid making the same mistake that we have.
Wish me luck....I am going to try to quit again next week!
let him know where you stand on the issue and stick with it. i started smoking at 13 and continued until 19. my mom just made it easy for me, even buying my cigarettes for me when i was underage. don't be that mom!
the "seeing what it was like" excuse is a way for him to see how you react to the news of him smoking. do not take it lightly. warn him of REAL consequences (health, disciplinary, etc) if it happens again.
i don't have experience raising a preteen, but i remember being one. i really wish my mom would have come down on me harder, teaching me to value myself and my health.
My dad gave us only two rules that he repeated frequently:
(1) No smoking, because you'll never be able to quit
(2) No permanent damage (if you think about it this covers lots of topics from tatoos to unplanned pregnancy to dui's)
And honestly, the reason he gave for not smoking was the best one for me as a teenager.
Hi L.:
I agree with the other moms - teens will be teens and they're going to experiment no matter what you have to say about it. Especially if the "cool kids" are doing it! One suggestion I have, speaking as someone who has two parents who smoke and an ADHD husband who had drug problems as a teen, is to encourage your child to channel his energy into something positive and physical, like sports. Sports programs not only keep him busy and involved with a healthy crowd of people that may be a positive influence on him, but many programs also have severe repurcussions if the child is caught smoking or doing drugs outside of school. I was a cheerleader and gymnast in school and our coaches were very strict about kicking anyone off the team if they were caught participating in illegal activities at any time. That was plenty incentive not to start. Plus, I never had the time and didn't want that stuff to impact my physical performance! Hopefully, there's a sport out there that he's interested in...starting now is the best way to keep him in it through high school! Good luck...
First you need to see if anyone that is a family member smokes. If that is the case, there's not much more that you could change in his life, besides getting him to see the harmful effects of smoking. Typically if someone in the family smokes, the child is more likely to smoke. I have made it clear to my teen that he is never to smoke, I don't ever want it around my house. He knows that I would have to have him leave the house should he do that. Mainly because there are so many asthmatics in the family, myself being one of them.
Funny....I never did ANYTHING but apparently all of my cousins did bc our Thanksgiving conversation turned for an hour or so to all the different things the aunts and uncles did when they caught them smoking/drinking/etc. The thing that worked the best: My aunt made one cousin smoke the whole pack in a sitting. My great grandmother made my grandfather EAT the pack of cigarettes. - either one of those will probably make him sick enough to not want to go near it again. both were 12.
Also at twelve, my cousin was enamoured of the "black sheep" part of the family...who typically remained drunk. So his mom sat him down with a bottle of whiskey and made him drink 8 oz....which made him so sick he hasn't had any since....even as a 40 year old man.
While these things sound harsh, they worked.
Remember being a teenager too...if he's gonna do something, honestly, he's gonna do it. And unless you find something harsh, your efforts to stop him from doing it will probably push him towards the undesirable behavior. But don't let that discourage you!! You wouldn't be the loving parent you are if you gave up!! :)
GOOD LUCK! Let us know if anything works!
My husband and I were is a similar situation with our teenage daugters not too long ago. I kknow this will sound harsh, but harsh is the only way to go. I also understand that teenagers will be tenagers, and they do try diferent things. The "I just wnt to see what it is like" excuse is mostly to see if he can get a rise out of you. We have decided to put our children on lock down. They do not leave the house without us or a grandparent, they do not talk to friends outside of school, no computer or phone. This is the only thing that seems to work.
I have heard tht sitting them down and making them smoke an entire pack in one sitting (light one off the other) has deterred quite a few kids form continuing to smoke. They will mostlikely get sick. I am sure you don't want him to get sick, but I bet he won't do it again!
