To let my daughter smoke

[GreenAmy]

Be easy on me as I have been having a nightmare with my 11 year old daughter since November when I first caught her smoking. Posted on parenting a few weeks ago but did not really get any answers.

I have stopped her allowance and took away her dS Lite, grounded her, took away her phone, MP3 player, TV and all I have achieved is to drive a wedge between use.

We used to get on so well now she is like a stranger, yet I know she still smokes, she says she has friends.

I watch her smiling and being polite with other people, everyone tells me how sweet, polite, helpful she is.

I worry where she gets her cigarettes from and where she goes off to smoke also.

So as this section is more busy I will post here and ask for suggestions.

I am tired of the situation and prepared to give in to her.

Her father died in a traffic accident in 2009, so not around.

[Buda]

Yes you are being unreasonable to let her smoke. But you know that!

11??? I am just so shocked that 11 year olds are smoking. My DS will be 10 this year. 11 is not far away!

Does she have any sporty interests?

I agree that you need to stop her. She will hate you now but will appreciate it when she is older. A lot older!

[GypsyMoth]

havent read all the posts,so apols if repeating

my dd has started smoking too,she's 14. i have also cut off her money.

also,i have text her friends parents (as they BUY the cigs for their underage dc) to say she is NOT ALLOWED THEM

also,have told local shops that they are serving underage kids....as some do get them from asking other people to buy them.

local community police....i have informed them,as dd says if they put hoods up on hoodies and ask weaker looking people,then they will feel intimidated into getting them.....this could move on to alcohol too. bloody wicked kids!!!

[bubblewrapped]

way to go Tiffany... make your daughter really really hate you...

sorry, I can see you are probably very angry with your daughter for smoking, but in my view the way you are dealing with it is going to alienate your daughter even more, and she is unlikely to confide in you and more likely to go to more lengths to keep you from controlling her...

[Lamorna]

You can't just give in because it is difficult, you are the parent and she is only 11yrs old.

[BabyDubsEverywhere]

This is something i dread. I started smoking at the very young age of 9! (well 9 and two months) I came from a very respectable happy home, my parents smoked when i was young, but were both quiting by then. As they were cutting down to quit but still seemingly buying the same amount of fags i took most of what i smoked between 9-11.

By the time i started secondary school i was on ten a day. I used bus fare and/or dinner money, youthclub money, tuck money etc to buy fags. also would buy a full 10 deck for £1.10 and sell singles off for 30p to buy another pack. everyone at school would always save twos for someone who didnt have any.

I think my parents knew around 14, and i came out with it about 15 and started smoking in my room. buy then i was on 20 a day.

I quit the day i found out i was pregnant with my first DC. i was 22, and on 60 a day

I hate the idea of my own kids smoking - who doesnt, but i really cant think of anything my parents could have done. I had a fair amount of cash and free reign to buy what i wanted unchecked. BUT kids who didnt have this smoked just as much, friends are more important than rules at that age and you help each other out.

Sorry im completely useless,

[StealthPolarBear]

at 'controlling' an 11 yo
TBH I'm shocked they aren't supervised 24 hours a day at this age
(not criticism, but DS is 4 and I can't envisage a day where he'll have that much freedom)

[StealthPolarBear]

Baby, how did you get the bus to school then?

[bubblewrapped]

An 11 year old does not normally get taken to and from school by a parent, and an 11yr old normally has a certain amount of freedom to go out with their friends unsupervised.

At 11 I was able to go and do shopping for my mother on my own.. I loved the independence.

[Lamorna]

They go to school StealthPolarBear, they go to clubs, societies and things, parents work. At 11 they need some freedom, they can go shopping without mother etc. It isn't that easy. I would say she is very unhappy and that needs sorting.

[BabyDubsEverywhere]

...and I can't spell

[GypsyMoth]

bubblewrapped.....why would she hate me? it was a phase she went through,pretty much over now as i thought it might be. hence her telling me all the tactics er friends used!!

also,she doesnt actually like the taste/smell/feel......so it was just the looking cool aspect she liked....how many actually enjoy the actual act of smoking??

[StealthPolarBear]

thanks...maybe I need to start a new thread for this. Surely they are supervised at school though - at what point in school would an 11yo smoke?

[BabyDubsEverywhere]

We walked to school, took 20 minutes on the bus as it went on a long route to get all school kids, or walked direct in 30 minutes. the bus was more of a social thing tbh.

(we always walked on a tuesday as it was market day and we'd have doughnuts for breakfast!..and be late)

[TheButterflyCollector]

YABU. I don't agree with liberal attitudes and protestaations that a parent must give her some freedom, can't be with them all the time etc.

She's 11. Eleven, not 21. Who's the adult here? Who's in charge? If she were mine wouldn't just be without her allowance, phone and the like, she would have her dinner money paid to the school by cheque, she would have no access to cash whatsoever and she wouldn't go outside of the front door nor have any child go through it until she could do as she was told. If she couldn't be trusted to go straight to or from school without going via the shop for cigarettes or without going behind the bikeshed, she would be taken to and from school and if she was smoking at school I would be telling staff that I wanted her kept indoors under supervision at breaks.She'd give in long before I would.

If you aren't prepared to come down hard on her that's your choice but the alternative is not to let the 11 year old play the part of parent and do as she pleases by allowing her to smoke.

[ShesEverSoFamous]

I started smoking when I was 13, my mother knew and she tried everything she could to stop me.

I wasn't allowed out except for school, she starting carrying her own cigarettes in her pocket, pocket money was stopped and I started taking a packed lunch to school. I still got cigarettes, from friends or having half of a friends cigarettes.

When I turned 16 I was allowed to smoke in the house and was earning my own money, I really wish she hasn't allowed me because I really do believe I would have stopped eventually. As another poster said, with my mother allowing me to smoke in the house my habit got a lot worse. I went from 2 or 3 a day to 20 and then to 40.

I've only recently gave up, I stopped when pg with both of my DDs but always seemed to pick the habit back up.

Wow! That turned in to a bit of a rant, all you can really do is show your disapproval but do not let her smoke!!

[BabyDubsEverywhere]

At 11 (at secondary) chances to smoke
On way to school/waiting for bus
Just outside school before you go in
First break
Dinner
Second break
On way home/waiting for bus
Just before you go into house.

[bubblewrapped]

Tiffany. This is my opinion, obviously I dont know you or your daughter. But if my mother had been so heavy handed ie ringing my friends parents etc, I would have made damn sure she thought I no longer smoked.. I would have said all the right things to her...

I would also have carried on smoking behind her back too....

If that had been her reaction to me smoking, I most certainly wouldnt have ever let on to her that I had occasionally had a drink of alcohol.

Can you see where I am leading to?

[StealthPolarBear]

thanks BabyDubs...

[Lamorna]

I am intolerant of smoking, I can abide it and I can smell it at 20 paces, so I think I would make her strip off in the kitchen, put her stuff straight in the washing machine and then have a shower and wash her hair!
Not possible if you already smoke and have the smell everywhere, but perfectly possible for someone who has a smoke free house.

[pointylug]

This must be so hard.

The big positive is that she is so smiley and polite and helpful with other people. So she seems to be a good kid. Well done.

If it was me, I think I'd sit down with her and tell her (in a calm measured way) how sad I was about her smoking but that there is really nothing I can do to stop her. I'd say that I never wanted to see her smoke and I didn't want the house to smell of smoke at all and that I wouldn't talk about smoking.

I'd tell her that I expected to know ehere she was at all times. I'd say that I wanted to get on well with her again. That I wanted the focus to shift to how we were getting on and away from cigs for a while.

[pointylug]

Goodness, there are LOADS of places an 11 yr old could smoke.

You just cannot police them all the time at that age.

I would find it incredibly upsetting but I do think I'd put my relationship with my daughter above the cigarette issue.

[BabyDubsEverywhere]

Oh forgot PE, always opted for cross country running. You were given routes so you could jog out of sight, have a nice relaxed walk, a good gosip with a mate and a few fags and limp back pretnding to have fell in a hole or whatever, lovely afternoons at school doing PE.

[TheButterflyCollector]

pointylug, you can police an 11 yo all the time. Whether you want to or agree with doing so is a different matter but it can be done.