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.

The sound of my dad coughing up his lungs in the morning. He would make these nausea inducing chocking, gurgling, boaking kind of noises.

He was in his 40's when I was born, by the time I was a teen he'd been smoking for 50 years and it had definitely taken its toll on him.

I was too scared to buy them before the age of 16 and too sensible after that I think. I had the odd one or two. Never liked it. Also, my brother hated it and he was cooler than me!

I smoked a bit when I was 16/17 - pure peer pressure, I didn't enjoy it in the least.

I stopped when a boy I fancied for ages kissed me at a disco and said I had 'faggy nan breath.'

I can tell you one reason why I started - it's because my parents kept going on at me about it.

Sorry! I stopped when I grew up a bit and realised I was being stupid.

I never smoked. My mum was an ex-teen-smoker and just said to me the words "I will know if you do and I will be very disappointed if you do.". Nothing melodramatic, but it was enough.

My DH smoked when we met in our early 20's and I just made it clear to him that I didn't like it and we wouldn't be able to live together until he stopped. He stopped. I also used to do things like pick up his lit cigarette in the pub and make as if I were going to smoke it. He didn't like that. Hope he gets a girlfriend?

Maybe try just "outing" him, buy some cigarettes and offer him one to have in the back garden at home? I imagine it would be much less cool/less appealing if sanctioned by and watched by parents. Could you get some herbal ones and pretend to join in? Even less cool!

Maybe some financial reward - he puts the money he would have spent in a jar and you match it for a few months or until the habit is broken? Then he gets to spend it on some agreed item?

It tended to be a particular type of kids who smoked when I was at school; and I remember thinking that it was all a bit sheep- like. They tended to be the less confident and less achieving kids (obviously generalising and don't wish to offend anyone) . Not that I was hugely confident as a teenager, but I did have a sense of not wanting to just follow what everyone else did.

Also- it makes you smell disgusting . I remember thinking that smoking wouldn't be so bad if it was just the small when you're actually doing it, but of course smokers smell of it afterwards too, and it just made me think of old men and ashtrays!

Op- I feel for you, as not being smokers yourselves is the biggest thing you can do to make it more likely that your own kids don't become smokers in turn. Hopefully it is a phase and he will come to his senses and realise there is nothing cool about it

maryz :(. My dad died of emphysema when I was 6. I too remember a very ill man, old before his time and sleeping in the lounge with a commode nearby because he was too unwell to get upstairs. Why would I have done anything that might cause that? It sounds wrong to many but I wonder if any people who are actually dying of smoking related disease would be willing to talk to/be visited by teenagers as a deterrant. To this day I am freaked out by gas masks and that weird rasping sound you get from people in them. My mum reckons it was because my dad was on oxygen and breathed noisily as he struggled to get enough air.

Nothing could have stopped me, I started by smoking my Mums butts carried on for about 10 years.

When my best friends Dad (who was also a heavy smoker) found out she had started at 15, he sat her down and made her smoke cigarette after cigarette until she was throwing up and them made her smoke some more. Quite horrific really but she never smoked again and now says she is really grateful he stopped her.

I used to work in a newsagent, after school, from the ages of 13-17 yrs and I just found old people (probably anyone over 30) coming in, gasping for a fag, just completely pathetic. Sometimes they would beg you to sell them a couple of cigarettes as they couldn't afford the entire pack and I found it pitiful TBH.

Both my parents smoked and being locked in a car with them puffing away and gagging on the smell was enough, also the ashtrays full of butts.

I keep hearing an advert on the local radio telling us that a lot of house fires are caused by people not putting cigarettes out properly. My Mum proved this by having a fag first thing in the morning and going to work. It was the school holidays so we were left in bed, luckily I woke up to find our house on fire.

We used to hide her cigarettes, beg her to stop. She used to wake up every morning and light a fag before she even got out of bed. She finally gave up after probably 45 years of smoking.

It was tragically too late, she died a harrowing death from lung cancer 2 years ago. 2 rounds of chemo, all her hair fell out, she had secondary cancer in her brain. She decided at that point why bother not smoking when it was clear she was going to die. I had to wheel her outside the cancer hospital with the rest of the smokers for her fix.

Her actual death was horrific to watch, in fact my Dad couldn't, luckily she was unconscious when he broke down. He has since quit smoking.

If either of my two ever smoke, I will stop all their pocket money. Fortunately the secondary school works on a card system to pay for school dinners.

I will talk to them, nothing dramatic that will make smoking more appealing, but I would worry that they are doing it to fit in so I would be trying to find out who is influencing them and where the hell they were buying them from.

Puffed on them occasionally (as in a single puff once in a while, like a dare see if I can thing) Vile, just remember wanting to choke.

So, basically, nothing will work? Bugger. I was reading with interest as I want dd (age 17) to stop smoking.

The smell. It stinks.

Yellowing fingers - my mum has yellow fingers from smoking.

I smoked for about three months - mainly because friends were. Those two things put me off.

Nothing when I was a teenager, marrying a cardiologist was the only thing that made give up.

I have never even tried smoking. For two reasons. One, I was quite non-conformist so didn't smoke precisely because everybody else did. And two, fear. I genuinely did worry about what it does to your body and wasn't about to take the risk. I think a lot of it is personality though. I'm no risk taker/thrill seeker and don't have an addictive personality so things like smoking/recreational shoplifting/prank calls etc just didn't appeal to me. I'm too vanilla for all that. Or square as it was termed back in the day.

Never appealed to me at all after the way I stunk after nights out.

That & the thought of what my breath would be like!

I tried it a couple of times and wasn't interested. All my friends in older teen years smoked but I couldn't stand the smell.

If he's 15, how is he affording it? If my kids, aged 18 & 19 started they would both know that me & their dad would be very upset - DH's mum died young, smoking contributed to her death. I don't think my 2 would chose to do something just to because we say "no", luckily they don't seem to be wired that way!

Good luck

A few reason stopped me. My dad would have killed me. A preferred to spend my money on make up, clothes and magazines. I went out with a guy from age 14 to 16 who used to say that if we waver split (which of course we did!) that I would drink, smoke and go to the Grove (a dance in a school in Dublin). We split. I went to the Grove. I drank. I didn't smoke!

Then I liked being the only one of my friends who didn't smoke!

Nothing would have stopped me, I gave up when pg and DH still smokes :(, my Dad was a heavy smoker, both grandparents lost to cancer and I still did it, idiot.

I would say try a combination:

Firstly NEVER tell him you know he smokes, nothing you say will stop him and if you make it official he will smoke more as he can do it in front of you rather than sneaking around. My parents knew I did, now I've stopped the stink makes that obvious but I never smoked at home where I spent 80% of my time.

Secondly say a friend has told you about offering their DC (or some other such bullshit tale) a holiday to x a year or £x when they reach y to never start smoking. You lurrve him soooo much that you want to do the same to prevent him "insert dying a horrible prolonged death, smelling, being poor, ageing prematurely and all other anti smoking scariness" and although you know he is far too sensible to even consider it "add lashings of emotional guilt" you still think it would be a good idea to offer it to him too.

Have you tried talking to your ds about why he feels he needs to follow the conventional teenage thing of illicit smoking? I am sure for most teens it starts off as wanting to do something they (erroneously ) think is cool, and then when they grow up a bit and have more confidence they are hooked and can't stop. I have a few friends my age (mid 40) who smoke and it's a source of huge embarrassment to them that now they have the sense to realise its really bad for them, they just cant quit. And we all have children around 10-15 and it's the worst thing for their kids - even the ones who try to hide it from their kids, in fact that's even worse Becaise it gives the message to kids that not only are you doing something really unhealthy but your lying about it too

Try to find out if he's feeling insecure about something, maybe his looks or school work? Difficult though as teens tend to clam up.

Or how about equating it directly with really unhealthy eating habits. Ask him if hed find it attractive for a girl to be obese and stuffing junk food - because smoking is just as bad.

My scuzzy mates used to pick up fag ends off the street and smoke them - not so appealing I thought [vom] so I never started

My grandfather made my dad smoke a whole pack of fags until he threw up. He never smoked again :)

When I was eleven I saw my Dad collapse from a heart attack which he attributed to his years of smoking. ... That probably isn't really something you can reproduce, sorry.

I smoked from 11-16, gave up because one day I kissed someone who had been smoking when I hadn't had one, tasted vile so never smoked again.

An ex-teacher of mine, someone I really respected, bet me I couldn't go a week without a cigarette. I haven't had once since (14 years!). That sort of thing works on teenagers I guess!