14 yr old vaping wwyd?

[oOmoonhaOo]

Hello,

My 14yr old was about to go out with a friend shopping for the afternoon, a train journey away. Ticket has been paid for… only £8. Then they were due to come back here for a sleep over.

I’ve just been in his room to help him adjust furniture to make room for the floor bed and I found a vape box on the floor… which he quickly stood on so I wouldn’t see.

I picked it up and questioned him on it. DH arrived at this point.

Initially he tried to lie saying it wasn’t his, but then he admitted to buying it to try it.

Neither me or DH vape but we both know that you don’t but a 9000 puff rechargeable vape to ‘just try’.

What would you do now? With 14yr old?

It's hard navigating relatively low level misbehavour like this with teens. If I found out that DS had done something genuinely awful (shoplifting, vandalism, bullying etc) then I would be down on him like an absolutely ton of bricks without any self doubt whatsoever. But with stuff like this... doing nothing or turning a blind eye feels akin to approval and totally wrong. But equally, punishments like grounding can feel disproportionate for what is very normal behaviour, and often feel like we are doing it for the sake of doing something and not because we actually believe it will stop them doing what they are hell bent on doing anyway. And it can backfire by just making them more likely to lie.

FWIW I think you've handled it fine - you've made your position clear and he's in no doubt that you're serious about it. Hopefully it will give him pause for thought. But don't beat yourself up or tie yourself up in knots about it if you haven't seen the last of it - he's a teenager and doing a few stupid things comes with the territory.

And to add - I think smoking weed in Y11 is also very normal. This isn't to say all kids do - I'm sure most don't - but it's certainly not unusual. I messed about with weed etc at that age and grew out of it just as quickly.

I do however feel very strongly about the ethical implications of illegal drugs, and that's what I base my position on when discussing drug use with the DC.

That is exactly how I feel @mybestchildismycat … So I do just hope it has made him stop and think at least!

Going to be blunt. You can't stop him. Try as you might. My dc did it. I tried everything! They find a way to get hold of them. They find ways to vape at school, to and from school anything.
I tried gentle parenting. Showing him online about nicotine addiction. Grounding stopping all pocket money even stopped lunch money and made them take sandwiches. Even when they had a birthday coming up those who gave cash gave vouchers, Still they managed to get them. They are so easily available in most corner / backstreet shops. They never ask for ID and my dc looked about 12 when they were buying them.
At that age if they want to do something they will. And the harder you try to stop them the more they rebel.

I watched my dad die slowly from copd and I firmly put vaping in the same category as smoking, we just don't know the long term impact yet. ds was 10 so saw the devasting impact of the condition on his grandpa

I would treat it exactly the same as smoking, tell him how disappointed I was after he saw what smoking did to his grandpa, and won't condone or enable.

Thankfully (hopefully) ds is past that stage now he is 19 and we didnt have the issue as he had seen the consequences first hand. If he hadn't I might have educated him some other way as he tends to listen to logic/facts.