AIBU to expect schools to teach children about vaping and smoking harms?

[badsmells]

My parents were chatting to my children and asked whether they were taught about the harms of smoking /vaping/nicotine pouches at school . They said (age 12, 14 and 15) that they hadn't had any lessons covering that topic.

According to my son in year 10 over 50% of children in his year vape.

If it was just one child I would have assumed they had snoozed through the lesson but for all three to say the topic has never been covered surprised me.

I do talk to them about it at home (not least because they are all asthmatic), but AIBU to think it helps for them to get these messages reinforced at school ?

Here's a crazy idea teach your own kid teachers have enough on their plates without having to also be parents

FFS, this is definitely covered in school. I used to teach primary school and we definitely taught it, smoking pretty much every year from about y3 I think. I just refuse to believe your children haven’t ever been told it’s dangerous OP.

Just show your teens this, and it’s only a small example. DD was 14 at the time when she started throwing up huge black clots. We had to measure how much blood was lost daily, and sometimes it was up to 70ml. It’s a long story, but in summary she went to theatre 3 times for investigative procedures. Each time she was asked and asked if she was vaping, and all the times this was denied. Fast forward 5 months, she was at physio for something unrelated. She had to take her blazer off and was reluctant. As she passed it to me I could feel it was heavy, and subsequently found the vape - which was, of course, not hers but one she was “saving for a friend”. Yeah, ok.

Baring in mind I work for the NHS, so I know how precious surgical slots are. Not to mention the time off work I needed, the wasted resources etc so my lord did I come down on her. Turn out, the vape was literally scorching her lungs and the clots were due to the internal bleeding.

She’s not vaped since, and now at 17 she does talks in her old school about what happened to her. She has a large social media following and shares her story on there too. But she’s far from proud of her experience, she realises now how stupid it was, but at 14 she wouldn’t have had any of it.

Here’s an idea, why don’t you ask your kids’ school in a non confrontational way what is taught on their PSHE curriculum and at what stage.
I suspect it’s rather more than your teens remember or have told you.
Also the thinking that if harms of vapes were covered in a lesson at school, teens wouldn’t do it, is a bit naive. They are not doing it because they haven’t had warnings but because they are young, a bit rebellious, and feel invincible at their age!

I work in a primary school & am a parent to teens - it’s 100% taught in all our local schools! It starts very early & gently in Primary as part of PSHE & is then reinforced, age appropriately, as they move up. By the time they’re in the upper years of Secondary, it’s pretty explicit & is repeated across PSHE & science lessons. I could ask one of our year 3 kids & they’d tell me that smoking & vaping is ‘bad for you’.

This ⬆️

It absolutely 💯 is taught…many times over in every year group OP.

The ‘thing that has gone badly wrong’ is that what’s taught isn’t being backed up at home. Parents are not upholding their part of the job 🤷‍♀️

Of course it is taught, along with every other fucking topic. I suspect they are being a little disingenuous because at least one of them had tried it themselves.

50% vaping is incredibly unlikely ime. Perhaps 50% have tried it once, but not 50% regularly vaping.

Naive to think because school says it's bad, kids don't do it.

Teaching about smoking and vaping is part of the statutory PSHE curriculum so it is taught. There is very little that ‘schools ought to teach’ that isn’t covered at least somewhere.

I have taught it. And yes. Lots of children vape - an alarming number but to be honest an hour a year of teaching from their form teacher isn’t going to deter teenagers from doing it it has to come from parents and wider societal pressures and guidance.

The authorities allowed his happen. The adults allowed it to happen.

They allowed nicotine suppliers create a new colourful trend, they may as well be mixing nicotine with a packet of haribo jellies.

Vape shops became really profitable. Selling the drug.

What did we expect? Now the school is supposed to deal with a generation of nicotine addicts.

These were purely introduced to get people addicted to nicotine again as the smoking campaign worked so well.

Two steps forward, ten steps back.

I always say it and have experience in NA, the first gateway drug is nicotine, every addict tried nicotine first, people blame cannibas but most cannibas user were addicted to nicotine first or tried it leaving the trace for more.