How bad is vaping in primary schools

[Supportyourlocal]

whilst picking DC up from primary the other day I noticed kids vaping (unsure of age). I was highly shocked at what I saw, I know vaping is terrible in secondary schools and needs banning as a result because most secondary parents don’t seem to care that their kid is vaping and seem fine with it. But in primary school this is very very bad and I would like to know if anyone knows how bad vaping in primary schools is and how parents respond. These poor kids just don’t know the harm they are causing them.

I live in one of the most deprived postcodes in the country and have only twice seen a child vaping, once was on a street not near school, two girls giggling about it and it was definitely a novelty for them, the other was handed it by the parent at an outdoor event, but family known to have issues. Both times the children were early secondary age. I've never seen parents vaping in playgrounds let alone children. Occasionally parents vaping outside school gates but not inside.

Bump

I work across a number of schools, in a senior position. Mixed area, market town.

Currently dealing with long term absence caused by vaping.

I am pretty shocked to find out that a number of 9-11 year olds are absent because of the impact of withdrawal symptoms as they try to reduce their vaping habit.

Gosh. I may be very naive but my son is in year 6 of the primary school we live next door to…I know most of his year and I’m fairly confident none of them do (famous last words perhaps). I’d be really shocked if there was an issue in primary schools here.

Similar to the above poster, my son just left an ultra deprived primary school, but I never saw any sign of the kids vaping.

My kids just told me today about a Y5 child who was caught vaping on a school trip last year. I was pretty shocked!

We had two separate incidents involving 5 different Y6 children in my class vaping at school last year. I’m still in shock about it, tbh. So horrible to see a small 11 year old exhaling a cloud of smoke.

I've seen some very scummy-looking parents giving their kids vapes when picking my 3 up from primary school
These are the same parents that drink at the school gates so as you can imagine those kids are raised very well

Mine is in Y6 and certainly nothing I've seen or heard of amongst her friends. They did talk about in school, but no evidence of anyone doing it or smoking either. I think it probably helps that we live far from anywhere you could by vapes, so wouldn't be an easy thing to be doing without an adult to regularly drive you the 20 minutes to the nearest shop that sells them. Of course, dd probably knows she'd be locked in her room for the rest of Y6 if I caught her vaping (I say this only partly in jest!).

25 years ago I moved my sons to a different infant school due to reception children smoking.

OMG. Poor kids.

4-5 year old children, plural? One is shocking, more than one is absolutely astounding.

My DS is in Y6, he tells me everything that goes on (who swears, who plays unsuitable games...) and he's never mentioned anyone vaping so I'm sure it's not a thing at his school. I hope not anyway!

My local outstanding primary school has had incidents with Y6s vaping. This was taken very seriously by the school, but I think it's still pretty shocking.
This is in a good part of town and I believe the kids got them from someone's older brother.
Secondary schools full of vaping, it's definitely not that the parents don't care, many of them care a lot.

If they cared, the kids wouldn't be vaping.

If any of my kids started vaping (god forbid) I would come down on them like a ton of bricks and demand them to quit.

You're lucky your kids are easy to parent and that they listen to you.

Goodness, I wonder why the parents haven’t thought of doing that.

Does that also work for drinking, drugs, sex, lying and other undesirable behaviour? You just tell your teenager not to, and they don’t? Parenting teenagers is going to be an absolute doddle if so.

It’s unheard of in my area.

My 17 year old saw some primary school kids fish out a used Elf bar from a bin then take turns trying to smoke it. They were in uniform so definitely in primary. He was very shocked as that sort of thing definitely wasn't on anybody's radar when he was in year 6.
At his school, vaping is very common in year 7.

And when they just get better at hiding it from you?