Just Discovered My Teenager is Vaping

[blueskysmiling]

I just discovered my son is vaping Juul (the USB type pods from the States). He says he’s only been doing it a month but I can see from the Amazon account he’s already paid £60 for 3 deliveries of it.

He off to Uni in 2 weeks, and will be skint until he finds work, as he only qualifies for the lowest maintenance loan. But he’s been looking for work since January (he was completing his BTEC at 6th form, then finished in June). Despite applying for over 50 jobs in that 8 months and going to 12 interviews, he didn’t get hired. He has some retail experience from a seasonal contract as a Customer advisor with Argos last Christmas which he did well with, improved his self-esteem, and was even awarded a voucher for excellent customer service by Argos.

He stammers, and can appear a little awkward, and this may have put employers off – he was even rejected for non-customer facing roles by Tesco, B&M, Asda…and even Argos this time.

He’s living away from home from next month, in a rented house with 3 other boys from his college course who are doing the same degree. 2 of them have part time jobs up here and they get larger maintenance loans due to their personal circumstances. I don’t know if they vape also, but my worry is that Juul pods are expensive AND highly addictive, my son will be struggling to live as it is without hemorrhaging cash on vaping, and combined with his propensity to low mood, and difficulty in communicating, he’s not giving himself the best chance of getting off to a good start at Uni.

I’m so worried and I don’t think I can stop him or even influence the situation to help him make better choices.

I don’t want to go yelling at him, as it’s fruitless, and will set us further apart. But I’d really like him to stop before he spoils his chances. He isn’t paying for his own food yet and got rent coming out, and it’s just unfortunate that he got this habit BEFORE he realised how expensive it is to live away from home and fund your own life. And I’m so worried he’ll be hooked when he finds this out and it will be too late.

[WilkosWanderer]

If you stop him right now, he is an adult, expect no calls or time home at uni, you can't stop an adult by law stop cease doing something that is permitted.

[Fleetheart]

It doesn’t seem too bad to me. There are much worse things he could be doing and after all he is 18.

[blueskysmiling]

Thanks. No, I absolutely get that. It'd be naive to think he'd not have some sort of vice in his teens. And worse things happen than this.

I think it's probably that this is uncharted territory for me and I wondered if there was a way to dissuade him so he might not be so skint at uni.

[greenpeony]

I know everyone's circumstances are different but the point of getting the minimum loan is that your parents are in the position to top it up to the maximum level.

Yes vaping is an expensive habit but aside from that completely you should be topping up his loan so he can afford to house and feed himself. If he wants more disposable income beyond that then yes he needs a part-time job but he shouldn't be on minimum loan and then expected to support himself completely from there.