To be angry at the "I 'm scared my dad will did" smoking advert was shown at the cinema yesterday during a PG film?

[Notalone]

I fully understand the purpose of the advert, I really do, but I also feel it is installing fear that wasn't there before into children.

I took DS to the cinema yesterday to see a PG and there were lots of children there. This advert came on and it really scared DS as DP smokes. I gave up smoking a while ago and I am aware that smoking is stupid, dangerous etc but I cannot force DP to give up until he is ready. However DS is now convinced his dad is going to die soon. I feel these adverts may well have kids all over the country terrified and tbh this makes me angry as it is not fair on them. What do you think?

Smoking is for losers - the sooner your DH takes that on board and quits the better it will be for all your family.

Hopefully your DS will keep on to your DH now about giving up (I guess after all that's the purpose of the ad ) and he'll feel guilty and give up.

If I were in your shoes I think I'd be on to him relentlessly about giving up. If you "wait for him to be ready to give up" the chances are he never will be.

It's a no brainer - smoking is bad for your health, makes you stink and is outrageously expensive.

Doesn;t your DH think what he could be doing for his family with all that money he burns?

I think if I were you and I'd been strong enough to pack it in I'd be giving him a pretty hard time about still doing it.

It is supposed to give the view point of the child (your child). The voice and angle are clearly of a fairly small child, which would be of no interest to a teenager. Adverts are directed towards parents and young people because it's the rump group of smokers, and because teenagers are still getting hooked. Something like 40% of children live in households with a smoker, so it's an understandable demographic.

Personally that one doesn't really affect me as my children are older, which all goes to show how targeted these things have to be to be effective.

Trouble is Gunnerbean that nagging is a totally ineffective way to get someone to give up. The advert will only work if it is watched by the target (ie the smoker) and it gets to them emotionally, so that they think "what am I doing to my children".

see how the child of a parent with chronic lung disease feels about the advert

Interesting. To me that is speaking directly to a small child, which is why the small children who saw the similar canal one in the cinema were upset and asking if their parents were going to die.

I just think it's off to show that ad and others in the series to small children. It is obviously going to be very upsetting and I remain unconvinced that the resultant tears will actually do anything to stop the parents smoking.

As I said earlier, parents don't want to smoke, they do it because they are addicted, and nothing is going to make them pack it in before they are actually ready themselves.

Well the idea with all these ad campaigns is to provide that final impetus to those needing the final shove to get them to seriously try and stop smoking. It's not as if most people weren't fully aware that what they are doing is a bad idea. When you see people in their dressing gowns attached to drips outside of hospitals having a fag everyday it seems to me just fine to try any approach that works to get them to think twice. These adverts try the line that if you don't care what you are doing to yourself, think about those that love you. And it does work for some.

My dh btw thinks they are great. Doesn't have any impact on his smoking though!

I still don't think they should be showing them when they know that young children will be watching though. That's my issue with them. Does the end justify the means? The people who don't smoke are tending to say yes, the people who do smoke/used to smoke are tending to say no. And surely it's the smokers/ex-smokers who are best placed to comment. Especially as the consensus of smokers /ex-smokers seems to be that the ads wouldn't work anyway. So there is no "end" to be justified, we are just left with a load of crying kiddies.

yes i believe the end does justify the means

Were there really lots of crying children? My two were certainly sad when they understood the health hazards of smoking (at about 5 or 6), but it very quickly turned to irritation with their daddy. They don't really understand the idea that Daddy might really die (and not just in some far off future). They got the idea that smoking was a bad thing long long ago (as soon as they were old enough to touch cigarette packets etc) so I suspect that by the time they were going to PG films this sort of ad probably wouldn't have been such a big deal.

Re the features a child so aimed at a child, what about that anti-speeding advert with the little girl who gets killed and then back into reverse for the slower car to leave her alive? That was surely aimed at driver, not little girls?

I guess we will have to wait and see the outcome of the effectiveness of the campaign. But I would be very surprised if it has no effect. Agree with NotanOtter that the end does justify the means.

Also totally disagree that it's smokers and ex smokers whose views somehow have more validity. I don't smoke, neither does my DH, but anything which discourages my children from taking it up is a good thing IMO.

I was thinking about this a lot last night, and about the ad with the little girl lying in the road.

To me the smoking ad is aimed at children - but it's neither here nor there really.

I think the problem is that our culture and society are so adult-centric that people like the govt and media forget that what they produce will be consumed by small people as well as adults.

Maybe the smoking ad is aimed at mums. It doens't change the fact that a 5 year old who sees it with a smoking parent is going to be scared witless. Ditto the driving advert. A
child watching that and seeing an image of a child with its body smashed and blood coming from its nose will be disturbing. Someone earlier said "its the truth". Well yes but lots of things are the truth and we deliberately shield our children from them until we feel they are old enough to know/their peers tell them/they learn to read and learn for themselves.

The adverts have been made as shocking as possible presumably on the basis that the adult audience will be immune to gentler messsages, having viewed thousands over the years and being worldy-wise. Unfotunately these things are viewed by children who have not seen thousands and are not worldy-wise.

If you tell a small child its parent will die it doesn't realise the unspoken part of "probably not for a few deacdes" as the adults do. It thinks it means now, tomorrow, the day after.

No-one responded to my question about whether I should tell my DH that his father will die. it is true. And he is bringing it on himself. Yet it would be cruel of me to say it. It would be cruel of me to tell my smoking friends child that her mummy will die or my fat friends son that his mummy will. And yet it is OK for the TV to tell us this, in a much more powerful way than words can convey?

Surely the kind thing to do is make the message gentler for little ones.

Your mummy shouldn't smoke because it is bad for her and you. Not it will kill her.

You should stay out of the road because cars are dangerous. not here is a picture of a childs smashed body. In fact it is down to sheer chance whether you will be runover or not, however careful you are it may still happen, and the chances are that the driver will drive off and leave you in the road.

Why is that child on the TV crying mummy? Because she lives in a war zone and has been gang raped by soldiers.

If we insist on telling our children the absolute truth about everything from a young age, before they are old enough to know or ask, then we risk bringing up very miserable and worried children. And in fact that recent report said that we are doing just that. The poor little things are having to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders without the adult perspective. is it any surprise when they turn to adult coping mechanisms like drinking, drugs and yes smoking?

I am not harking back to some imaginary age where children were inncocents until they married, but it is human nature to protect your child, and removing the confidence that their immediate family unit is safe and secure without good reason is cruel.

Forgot to mention my other point - it has been said that people shouldn't have taken smaller children to a PG film.

It is legal for them to do so and it seems unfair for the children to be caused worry because their parents made the choice to take them to the cinema. It's not like they took them to an 18.

These ads are all over the TV as well. Many people may not let their children watch any TV. Others have the TV on all the time. Why should the children of one type of parent be afforded protection from fear while the children of another parent be subjected to it.

It's the broadcasters/media who should give a little more thought to the fact that it's not just adults who consume their output. FWIW I feel the same about lads mags/certain sensationalist headlines etc but that's for another thread. Why are we insisting to exposing our children to all this adult stuff. There really is no avoiding it.

I can see the reasoning behind these ads but think they are highly inappropriate. Am that they would show them at a PG film - if I'd have seen something like that at 7/8 I'd have been scared shitless as my Mum smoked (gave up 2 years ago bless her ).

I do think it's aimed at children and it's disgusting that the NHS or who ever is paying for them use children to deliver the non smoking message.

Notalone - best idea to me would be to make sure your dp watches that ad with your ds and answers any questions he has.
FWIW I hated my Mum smoking all the way through childhood - smelly house and clothes, and the fact I knew she smoked while pregnant with me - something in me will never forgive her for that.
Ironically, I started smoking as a teenager as I didn't believe it could possible be that bad for you if my Mum did it. I gave up about 15 years ago.
However, my Mum has recently stopped after 40 years - when I had dd! She had to decide though, no amount of nagging worked.

Jackstini - unless you are very young, your mother probably didn't know just how dangerous smoking in pregnancy is. OK, if you are under 40 she will have known it was not a wonderful thing to do, but neither will she have known all the stuff we do now.

I don't think these ads are appropriate at all.

I really don't.

To play upon childrens' worst nightmare: that Mummy or Daddy goes away and never comes back, it's NOT on.

so let's get this straight:

Smoking parents are annoyed because their children are essentially being told that smoking could kill, and as a result those children realize that their mummy or daddy could die because they smoke.

The fault for scaring those children lies with the smoking parent. My child is not scared by those ads because I am not a smoker.

So which is more important, you're child's wellbeing or your next cigarette?

Yes it is an addiction but it is still a choice. People choose to start smoking, people choose to give up, and people choose not to give up.

No-one said it had to be easy.

But putting your child first is easy. No?

I don't smoke

I am not a smoker and nor is everyone on the thread who is upset.

I am an ex smoker though and as such I know that for the vast majority of people, being told they should stop doesn't work. It is something you have to come to in your own time. Being an addict it is not a simple choice of "give up then".

I still don't see anyone saying that i should go to my smoking friends 4 yo and say "your mummy is gong to die", or that i should go to my fat friends 5yo and say "your mummy is going to die" or even that I should say to my 30 year old DH that his daddy is going to die. Because it would be a cruel and unneccessary thing to do.

For further reasons read my longer post above.

The argument "well give up then" simply doesn't wash for this or other health issues. If it was that easy hardly anyone would have type 2 diabetes.

It's just another example of people hammering peope who have an addiction, smugly saying "well I don't mind the ad, I'm not going to die".

I think the logic behind them is fallacious - i don't think they will actually impact smoking levels - so why cause a load of upset? For nothing? All of the smokers, ex smokers and people with smoking relatives on here have said that nagging hasn't made the blind bit of difference.

Or is it that non-smokers feel that the children of smokers deserve find out young that their secure family unit could be snatched away at any minute, as a kind of punishment for the actions of their parents.

The more I think about this the more I think it is a terrible attuitude.

I don't smoke.

But dd knows people (including my mother) who do.

To say the fault is with the parent and not the ad is ridiculous. Of course the parents shouldn't smoke. But they do. The advert should not, however, place a burden on the children of smokers.

If the children of people with unhealthy habits are fair game now, perhaps we should (as previous poster has said) have similar adverts with adults overeating/drinking alcohol, telling those children that their parents are going to die as a result of their obesity or moderate consumption of alcohol (was shocked to read in papers today that drinking 1 glass of wine a day has an impact on life expectancy).

Should qualify - have smoked in the past. Do not now (am pregnant in any case).

Well said, Jazz.

What next, show someone obese eating a cake and the kid coming up saying, 'I'm afraid my mummy's going to die'?

Because guess what? In some parts of the West, as smoking levels have fallen, obesity has overtaken smoking as a leading cause of preventable death.

'was shocked to read in papers today that drinking 1 glass of wine a day has an impact on life expectancy). '

What a load of tripe! And I'm not a drinker, either. But you know, people used to drink every more when there was no clean water, yet, if they survived the two greatest waves of death (before age 5 from illness and a similar upsurge for men and women from about ages 16-21 when men went into battle and women gave birth for hte first time) they had a good shot at living as long as we do today, even during Elizabethan times. Drinking all that booze, too.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7906355.stm

TBH I think breathing increases one's risk of getting cancer.

Was surprised. Will not be dropping odd glass of wine (when no longer pregnant) as a result. TBH old age i.e. over 90 looks scary enough, having seen my grandmother suffering with dementia for the last 3 years.

I hate the ads because it is not fair to scare children like this. Imagine how a child with a parent that smokes and won't give up must feel. They must feel helpless and that parent is going to die and leave them.