to ask what stopped you smoking cigarettes as a teenager

[norbettsauntie]

This is in the hope that you can give me some ideas on how to discourage my DS 15 from smoking cigarettes. I think he has one on the way to and from school and then one when he makes some excuse to "just pop down the shops" during the evening. (he's been spotted by my friends). DH and I don't smoke and he's not flush with money.

Nothing stopped me and nothing could have done.

I smoked quite heavily as a teenager and didn't give it up until I was much older.

I dont think you can TBH.

Teens smoke for all sorts of reasons and I think parents discouraging them from doing so just adds to the lure of it.

My uncle promised me 2k if I did not smoke by the time I was 18. (He figured at 18 I would be smart enough to NOT smoke)

I did not get 2k. So then I started. Silly girl.

I stopped when I had finished my BA though, so that was in 1996, and I was 24

Having tried one when I was nine and thinking it was a bit meh...

... Sorry OP, that doesn't help you

I grew up in a house where both parents smoked until I was 5. I also had 3 teenage siblings who were smokers. They always smelled. My gran's house didn't smell like our house.

I then grew up in the Salvation Army where you didn't smoke or drink.

But it was the toilets at school which did it for me. They always stank and I rarely used them.

I've always been a non-conformist. i didn't do it because everybody else was.

I'm no help either, I didn't smoke because my father was a heavy smoker and I found it all very disgusting when I was a child.

I was never offer one. so never did
and my 6ft4 dad said he would hit me if started smoking (he started at 10) ,his death was smoking related.and he died when i was in my early 20s.

Nothing!

When you are 15 you don't care a) about your health as you are indestructable and will live for ever b) what your parents think or say because.

I have up when I was about 25.

I've already told my dc I'll give them 1k each if they don't smoke til they're 18.

I have never smoked. When I was 13 my aunt died of an asthma attack - her asthma was aggregated by her smoking. My grandfather was also ill with smoking related illness.

Is he likely to respond to shock tactics of pictures of Cancer filled lungs?

Again not very helpful, but my friends didn't, so I wasn't really tempted.

Perhaps you could motivate him to save his cash... would you match his savings towards X expensive item, plus a bonus if he saves it in so many carefully calculated weeks to mean he won't have had cash to buy fags with?

If there is anyway you can find out who is selling them to him I would be putting the fear of God and heavy fines into them also.

I knew I had a highly addictive personality, and my baby sister was born when all my friends were trying it and I watched and listed to my mum enforce rules with her husband and mum over when they could be hold her etc because of the smoking, so I never tried it.

My brother started smoking as a teenager. He stopped when my mother refused to feed him anymore on the basis that she'd given him life and kept him alive to that point, but if he wanted to kill himself painfully, she'd help him make it quick.

I didn't because of vanity, and because I knew at that age that some day I'd want to have a baby.

Tell him you're fine with it and that you'd like to share a cigarette with him and have a chat about sex. That should be enough to put him off for life!

I stopped when pregnant with DS. Not much help for your DS though! I don't think there's much you can do.

Not sure but I was rabidly anti-smoking as a teenager. Then I started at 20 and smoked for 8 years or so

I think being non-conformist probably. I remember thinking it was incredibly stupid and stank. (I started because I was drunk for about two months after finishing uni and they taste nice when you're pissed, then I started working in a pub.)

What stopped me was growing up in a household of smokers (mother, step father and later, younger sis) I just thought it was gross. That, and most of my friends didn't smoke-although often their elder siblings did.

That said, we experimented with alcohol and went to clubs from an early age, albeit with our parents' knowledge.

I think subconsciously, I wanted to be "different" from the girls smoking in the toilets/on the bus at school. It seemed so obvious.

My own DTS's (now adults) have also never even tried a cigarette. They were and are still, very sporty. I don't think that their father and I being non smokers underpinned that to be honest.

I actually don't think you can stop him btw unless you find something he likes more - any chance you can get him hooked on a sport which requires him to be physically fit? Or find him a gf who hates smoking?

My mum smoked and I hated it with a passion. Spent all my childhood begging her to stop (if only :(), so wouldn't have started as a teen.

The money, but basically you come to your senses when your good and ready and no amount of nagging from the parents would have made a blind bit of difference.

Most ofmy friends smoked when I was a teenager and I'm not really sure why I didn't. I would have the odd one on a Friday night but that's it. I was one of the first to have a proper boyfriend - maybe I got enough 'cool points' from that - but I didn't start smoking when we split either.

Tbh I think that's just not where my vices lie. I have never really been tempted by smoking / drugs / regularly drinking to excess. Offer me cake on the other hand....

My friend's parents offered to buy her a (second hand) car if she got to 18 without smoking, and that worked.

I never understood why anyone would want to start tbh. All we had in school was how bad they are, saw pictures of the lungs of smokers etc. Why would you want to do that? And practically, how COULD you pay for them if your weekly pocket money was less than the price of a packet? Also I hated getting into trouble so would never have done it behind the bikesheds. I was never the rebelling kind.

Nothing. I started when I was 12 because I wanted to keep "in" with the rough kids at school (so they wouldn't beat me up for being a swot). Three years later I was the cigarette baron of fifth year, paying a bodyguard and raking in £20 profit a week (which for the mid 80s was more than I earned in my first "job" on a YTS scheme when I left school).
Then I smoked until I had a heart attack, stopped for a year, started again, and had another heart attack, was revived from the dead and have set a date to start again. I miss it every minute of every day and if my DCs weren't so young I wouldn't have stopped even now :(
My pfb started when he was a teen and I told him that if he wanted to smoke he was buying his own, and that if he so much as looked at mine I would wait until he was asleep and immac his head with the word TWAT or similar, and draw on him with permanent marker, and never give him a single penny ever again. (he does believe my threats though, ever since the time I set him on fire)
I did also point out how hard it is to ever stop, but not starting in the first place is really simple. My other 4 DCs were here when I died and were brought to "say goodbye to mummy" by the paramedics so I don't suppose they will ever start. If they do, I'll try reminding them and hope for the best.