Help teaching about smoking/danger

[hmb]

I'd like some help from smokers/ ex smokers.

I am teaching a lesson about the dangers of smoking to a class of Y9 kids. They are quite bolshie and I know that several of them already smoke (age 13).

Assuming that you don't want to smoke any more, what could I say to them to help them to avoid the temptation/ give them the guts to quit.

I know all the biological facts but what has made you want to quit.

Any help would be wonderful. Many thanks.

hmb, i WISH i could help but i gave up because i got pregnant and i'm SURE you don't want to be giving them that reason!!!!!

I gave up because I wanted children. It has nothing going for it, makes you stink and costs an absolute fortune and above all it kills. My dh went from an average weight of 11 stone down to 5 stone when he died and he looked like gollum (sp) out of that film. LOTR or Harry Potter, don't know which but he was still my gorgeous DH right until the end. Not a nice way to go . If they're determined though, i'm not sure even that will stop them tbh.

Theres some fab stuff Here really worth a read.

My own personal reasons are that when I first started smoking I didnt realise I would still be doing it 10 years later and it would be making me feel 50. Didnt realise that 2 years after starting to try and quit I still wouldnt have managed it.
Didnt realise quite what an absolote hellish nightmare I was getting myself into.
Ask them why they think adults try and stop them from smoking...its because these adults have been there done that, lost relatives and friends and have 20 or 30 years of bad experiences of smoking.
They are not trying to stop them having fun, they are trying to stop them from killing themselves before their adult life has even begun.
Must stop rant

And this is really quite harrowing and they might relate to him. Here.

Sorry if it raised bad memories for you delgirl, that would be the very last thing I would want to do. I am so sorry

A lot of them said today ,' 'Well I will smoke for a bit and then give up before it does me any harm'. I just want to do what I can to try to help them

Tell them smoking is horribly addictive - I used to think 'oh well, I'll give up soon' all the time too. Until I tried it and discovered how hard it is. There are so many helplines, books, clubs, nicotine replacement products out there - doesn't that show how hard it is to give up? Smoking is addictive, you can't just smoke one or two a day or just smoke for a while and stop. If you've never started, you won't miss it. If you have, it's very, very hard to stop and I know ex-smokers who have lapsed repeatedly (me for one, am currently back smoking). Ask them if they would smoke around their own kids, when they eventually become parents. And then point out that actually if they start smoking, they probably won't have given up by then (which is what everyone thinks when they are teenagers).
Why not get them to do a straw poll of the adults they know, finding out who is an ex-smoker and what they, and current smokers, say about trying to give up? Obviously has to worded carefully so doesn't sound like an accusation, but I'd definitely talk very seriously and honestly to a teenager about my own addiction if asked.
Also might be worth looking up some of the info about how evil tobacco companies are, all the secret documents that have been found about their policies to get kids hooked and deny the health risks. So they see tobacco companies for the drug pushers that they are.
Once saw stop-smoking guru Allen Carr and he claimed the bosses at Imperial tobacco had made the office smoke-free - would be interesting to see if that is true.
Good idea for a topic, btw.

hmb it's such a frightening drug - I smoked for 2 years even after I'd watched my dad die of lung cancer caused by smoking. He was only 59. I gave up because I don't want to go the same way (it could still happen, I smoked from 17-36 gave up Mar 03) and I so so wish I'd managed to do it sooner. Will post again if I think of anything useful. Enid posted something a while ago that really struck a chord with me - it was about how people truly don't worry about the damage caused by smoking as it seems such a long way away when you're actually smoking but by the time it's too late, it's too late. There's such a sense of deferred downside that people don't really believe it'll happen to them.

With this puff I enslave myself
to a lifetime of addiction.
While I can?t promise to always love you,
I do promise to obey every craving and
support my addiction to you
no matter how expensive you become.

I will let no husband or wife,
no family member or friend,
no doctor or any other health professional,
no employer or government policy,
no burns or no stench,
no cough or raspy voice,
no cancer or emphysema,
no heart attack or stroke,
no threat of loss of life or limbs,
come between us.

I will smoke you forever
from this day forth,
for better or worse,
whether richer or poorer,
in sickness and in health,
till death do us part!

You could post this on the black board..if they still have them in schools?!?

I think edam has hit the nail on he head.

When I was a teenager, I never really took any notice of anti-smoking campaigns because I "knew" that I wouldn't smoke for very long. At first I would only smoke socially - at parties - and always told myself that the day I had a cig on my own would be the day I gave up. It wasn't and later I told myself that I would give up well before health/kids became an issue. I didn't.

Having said that when I did give up my primary motivation wasn't health or kids (as it was before dd anyway). It was that I didn't want fags to be such a part of my life any more. I wanted to have a shorter mental checklist when leaving the house ( money, keys. instead of money, keys, tobacco, rizlas, lighter.) The crunch point came when I ran out of baccy one night and seriously contemplated a 3 mile walk to the nearest 24 hour garage.

And the really sad thing is that I started again 2 years later (after dd). I haven't felt "ready" to stop since (even though I did stop when preg with ds - it wasn't really giving up as I always intended to start again). Think I'll try again this winter.

One other thing: when you smoke, the effect on your health is gradual so you don't really notice it. But when I stopped I remember it suddenly became easier to get up in the mornings. It was wonderful. I told a teenage student that once, but he didn't believe me.

please don't apologise hmb, you haven't raised bad memories (they're always there). I chose to read the thread and add to it and hope that it may help.

What about appealing to their vanity? One of the clinchers for me to give up in my early twenties, was the realisation that I would get wrinkles earlier around my mouth, my teeth would be brown and my hair and breath and clothes smelled, making me extremely unattractive to the opposite sex and limiting the pool of potential partners, as there are some people who would never go out with a smoker, however attractive s/he was (I'm now one of them!)

Also, I gave up when I was 23, but when I was really really drunk one evening when I was 33, I had 2 cigarettes - and really enjoyed them. Never smoked since, but that's how powerful the addiction is.

I have known several EX-heroin addicts who were unable to give up smoking as well as it was just too addictive. I don't know if that's the kind of example you want to tell 13 year olds.

hmb- as an ex-smoker and a secondary teacher I just tell them about my personal experiences- which maybe you can't... I tell them about the grungy flem that I used to cough up in the morning (yuch), the lines round my mouth where the lipstick runs now, the money I've smoked over the years and the horrible time I had giving up. I tell them that as much as they think they're cool now I really wish I'd had the sense never to start as it's soooo hard and horrible trying to give up which I had to for a while before ttc dd... I don't know how much of it sinks in. Good luck

Never was a serious smoker so can't add much. When I did this in PSHE last year, used ash.org.uk website - some horrid horrid pics of smoking related illnesses on it. You may know the site already but if not, take a look! Pupils were really grossed out but fascinated too.

Thank you for the feed back, it has been invaluable. I have never smoked so I don't have any first hand experience to share with these kids.

I don't want to go down the 'Shock and Awe' line of very gory pictures, although I do have one or two to use, as these kids see themselves as 'hard' and delight in doing what adults tell them not to do! So the tack I have decided to take is, 'The adults in the drug company want you to become addicted. If you want to be different, to buck the trend, don't smoke. Don't be fooled.'

To help to get rount the 'It will never happen to me, it is all to far away to care idea' I have made a game of chance. Half the class die and the other half get to pick another effect of smoking from the wrinkles to impotence in the boys (always a winner).

I think that getting them to ask smokers when they started and if they want to give up is an ace idea to get over the 'I'll give up when I'm older' line.

Many thanks, you have all been great. I'll let you know how it goes on Thurssay. This is also my 'class from hell' so I always try to prepare well!

Also there is the money issue....10 a day cost £x amount times 365 days a year times 10 years or would they rather a nice car or fab holidays etc.

and girls would want to go out with someone with a car....

How did it go?

Not it's best as it was the last two lessons of the half term!

And one of the young smokers was leaving the school that day so she went out of her way to wreck the lesson. They were quite taken with a 'lucky dip' game I made that looked at the risks. The photos I used were nasty and confirmed the non smokers in their choice, but the smokers (and these kids are 13) were brazening it out, sadly.

I'm not a smoker but when I was a child our teacher set up an experiment where you drew smoke through a u shaped test tube containing cotton wool. Then we all had a look at the cotton wool to see what was deposited in your lungs. It is one of the only experiments I remember Modern cigarettes might not work as well as they are probably lower in tar but it might be worth trying out privately if you have to do this again.

I did do that, and it wad greated with a lot of yucks, especialy from those who don't smoke, but it didn't seem to make much of an impact on the smokers in the group . Made my clothes stink! They all went into the laundry basket as soon as I got home.

Well HMB at least you tried and im sure when they are coughing up flem they will remember that you did try, theres nothing more you can do, well done for trying!