Dd16 and 🚬 who is right?!

[BetterCallSaul99]

She isn't full blown smoking but kind of shares with friends. She also smokes weed at least once a week. I'm not happy about either and am hoping she will find a new group of friends who don't have to do this shit to enjoy life. She has no idea ive spotted her smoking. So we are away as a family for a few days and this is day 3. She has gradually got more and more moody and wants to go home on her own which I've said no. Her dad, who used to be a smoker for at least 25 years and struggled many times to give up over the years before finally cracking it thinks we should let her as he understands her suffering. I strongly disappointed. It would be us paying for it as she has no job, I don't want her to smoke for health or financial reasons and I think allowing it is ridiculous. And setting her up for a lifetime of it. He thinks it will stop her foul moods then we can all stop being on edge and relax and enjoy life more! Who is right?

I am VERY impressed by the number of posters who seem to have forgotten what it’s like to be 16... oh to have that sort of blissful amnesia...

Wtf, she went 'went wild' after lockdown, drinking loads, smoking and doing weed and her parent is suggesting facilitating that?!
Grow a backbone and parent her.
Smoking and drinking are illegal at that age too, i wouldn't be 'assisting' her to break the law

I suppose our recollection is sharper @WorkinWomansBlues as we weren't all wasted. Really, weed at 16 isn't "normal".

Thanks for the answers. Just to clarify her dad isn't an ex. We are very much married and all live together but disagreeing over this. His view is she will smoke anyway so we might as well let her. I am no way is that happening. I think he sympathises more as it is history repeating itself with him! Dd thankfully has cheered up and I pray we will go out soon and have a lovely night. I am definitely going to have a chat with her when the time is right. She is extremely argumentative so it needs to be approached with caution!! She is generally lovely and so open with me about all sorts so I am hoping she will accept my help. It's the mixing with peers that her biggest problem ...as soon as she sees her mates again she will be in trouble. And im not sure she is strong enough to resist. But i do know she hates spending her own money and does not get enough to fund smoking herself.

You are definitely in the right OP.

I smoke (not loads, but any is bad I know) and have done on and off since I was your DDs age. I tired to hide it when I was young but badly, because I was 16, but because my Stepdad and Grandparents all smoked I sort of got away with it, although my Mum objected.

I could not tell you how much money I'd pay now 30 years later for the habit/need to be magically spirited away from me. Let her know that you know and offer all you can to help her stop at this point, which it sounds like she wants to. The longer she carries on the harder it will be.

Good luck to you both x

Smokers often make the deal in their mind of preferring to continue to smoke and dying a few years earlier but happy than giving up smoking & being miserable.

What they don't realise is that dying a few years earlier isn't the deal at all. The deal is more likely to be having a life where you can't even take yourself to the toilet - someone has to help you or of being so short of breath you're unable to leave the house or losing a leg (or two) because your circulation has been damaged by years of smoking.

@TSSDNCOP

Pretty much a quarter of teens smoke cannabis according to fairly recent studies... a behaviour exhibited by a quarter of a cohort? I’d call that normal.

Hasn’t done me any harm, by the way, to have strayed from the straight and narrow in my youth, and I daresay Im a more realistic parent than I might have been otherwise, in terms of my expectations and responses to teenage behaviours that are well within the spectrum of “normal”.

@BetterCallSaul99

Thanks for the answers. Just to clarify her dad isn't an ex. We are very much married and all live together but disagreeing over this. His view is she will smoke anyway so we might as well let her. I am no way is that happening. I think he sympathises more as it is history repeating itself with him! Dd thankfully has cheered up and I pray we will go out soon and have a lovely night. I am definitely going to have a chat with her when the time is right. She is extremely argumentative so it needs to be approached with caution!! She is generally lovely and so open with me about all sorts so I am hoping she will accept my help. It's the mixing with peers that her biggest problem ...as soon as she sees her mates again she will be in trouble. And im not sure she is strong enough to resist. But i do know she hates spending her own money and does not get enough to fund smoking herself.

Where does she get the money from? Has she a job?

I think your maths suffered @WorkinWomansBlues if you think 25% is normal.

I'm confident in my parenting skills even not having been as cool as you.

@londonbrick I don't think I'd have been having that sort of rational thought at 16. Cut off my funding though, now you'd be getting my attention.

The thing that also limited my more stupid decisions was always money. Buying a whole packet of fags would've meant giving up a lipstick or whatever. Having to share the pack between 3,4 or 5 of you certainly limited your intake

I was your daughter. We went on a couple of family holidays and I was miserable the whole time. Nicotine addiction is not fun. I only quit at the age of 30 after lots of failed attempts. Quitting has to be intrinsic, no amount of scaremongering helped me. Support your daughter to quit with patches/gum etc but it is so so difficult especially if her peers are all doing it. If that doesnt work, vaping (although not totally healthy) is the lesser of the two evils. Good luck to you and your daughter.

I would get her patches or gum if needed.

You definitely need a chat to find out what else she's been using.

And i totally disagree with PP who thinks its fine to be laid back about 16yo using weed. God help us all if that is considered adequate parenting....

You are right. Your husband needs reminding he’s a parent.

Also can you help her to see the problem with the people she hangs out with?

Far too many people are afraid to parent their children these days.

“Oh they all do it/oh it’s normal/oh better let her do it or she’ll be upset.” People need to stop making excuses for their crap parenting decisions.

No, weed isn’t normal at sixteen, and even if kids do it that doesn’t make it ok. There are serious links between weed and MH and weed and moving on to more hard drugs.

As for cigarettes, not a fucking chance would I be allowing them anywhere near any part of my household and if she didn’t have a job she wouldn’t be getting money from me either.

I found out my DS was vaping and I hit the roof. Yes, you can’t necessarily prevent them from doing it elsewhere but I made it very clear that if it happened in my house there would be hell to pay.

We have enough heart conditions and the like in the family without needing to take on vile habits which could make things worse.

DS was never that committed in the first place tbh so it all died a death. But he knows my feelings on vaping, and especially on doing drugs.

I can't see how you can stop her but no way would I be paying for it.

@TSSDNCOP

My maths is fine thank you... “Normal” is not the same as “majority”- the sociologist, Emilie Durkheim did lots of work on the “sociological norm” in the late 19th century- his work is still considered definitive. I’d recommend taking a look.

I’ll assume you didn’t mean to be quite so rude, as they say round here...

Yes, I really did.

I was a smoker at the age of 14. I smoked for about 15 years, and still have the odd one while drinking. I completely disagree with everyone about patches and gum. Tell her to suck it up and snap out of her moods. Your dh is being ridiculous. Letting his dd do something that will have a serious impact on her health for an easy life , and he's an ex smoker himself! I'm quite shocked at that. She's 16, she's not been smoking that long, she can give up without the drama 🙄

@TSSDNCOP

you’re a treat!

Safe to say- we wouldn’t have been friends when we were 16. I might have been high, but I was at least, unfailingly polite.

Yes, I imagine 16 year old stoners are all p's and q's. They didn't realise how silly they were and how silly they'd sound at 40. Stop it now, you're showing yourself up.

@TSSDNCOP

What is it about me that’s upset you so much? Are you alright?

If you've done the patches thing in the past and it helped her stop, I think you should have a conversation with her around her moodiness probably being nicotine withdrawal, even if she has stopped being so moody for today. Offer to get patches, but no to going home alone; if you helped in the past, no harm in her being aware that you know she's doing it again, and that you aren't stupidly naive.
Tell your partner that this is what's happening, and he needs to be supportive, not encourage her addiction.
They sound as prattish as each other, but at least with your daughter she has the excuse of being young.

When we were growing up my parents would tell us that if they ever caught us smoking we would never get another penny from them as we weren’t spending their hard earned cash on fags. And we absolutely believed them. My mum used to smell my breath and sniff my fingers when I came in from a night out 😂 Never did us any harm and none of us ever touched cigarettes, never mind anything ‘stronger’! I think you need to be a bit stricter here OP - although potentially you’ve missed the boat on that already 🤷🏻‍♀️

I would be absolutely furious if I ever found out dd aged 17 was smoking. My mum had copd and I have asthma and she knows first hand the risks it brings. For me I would literally be withdrawing any spending money and banning wifi etc until I was confident she wasn’t doing it anymore - and I would definitely know as I can sniff out someone smoking from 1000 yards away. Literally cannot stand it and actually divorced my first husband because I caught him lying to me about stopping - amongst other things- that’s how strongly I feel about it.

Your dh is insane. Seriously fucked up. I’d be livid with him.