Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

Flip

Original poster

Smoking, 16 almost. Do you make a fuss about it?

25 replies

icouldjusteatacroissant · 16/09/2015 22:07

I smelled smoke on her a while back and was not happy. Threatened to stop her allowance etc etc. It doesn't appear to have made any difference, as her sister has seen her smoking, and a friend took a photo of her practising smoke rings in the park.

She's 16 next month, what should i do about it. Something or nothing?

Your opinions will be most welcome, thank you

OP posts:

IguanaTail · 16/09/2015 22:09

Do something. Secretly she will be glad. If you do nothing it's tantamount to condoning it in her eyes.

Explain to her all her eggs are sitting in her ovaries and every chemical she inhales or takes harms them. I remember someone telling me that and it put me off.

IguanaTail · 16/09/2015 22:10

Don't take away allowance. Not punitive. Explain and be serious about it. Show her why you're serious.

WickedWax · 16/09/2015 22:11

I'd tell her if she wants to smoke she does it on her own dime.

Then I would literally not give her a penny. I'd buy a bus pass for travel , give packed lunches, etc, etc, but she wouldn't get a penny of actual money from me.

wanderingwondering · 16/09/2015 22:11

As you've threatened it I'd stop her allowance. i would not be funding the stupid habit. She's old enough to get a job and may think twice about wasting money on fags if she's had to earn it herself.

Aqualady · 16/09/2015 22:13

I wouldn't let this go. This is an awful killer. Tall to her and help her quit.

I've just give up fags as I'm pregnant and its hard. Many don't. I dream of smoking

PacificDogwod · 16/09/2015 22:16

You cannot stop her, but you jolly well should make sure she knows a. it is not good for her, b. it leads to premature ageing, c. 'kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray' and d. that you know and disapprove.
And yes, follow through on your threat to stop her allowance. You can always make up for it by being more generous wrt things she needs/wants, but not give her funds to buy cigarettes with.
No fuss, no shouting just tell her that is what's happening.
I also agree she might secretly be glad to have a get-out clause in front of her friends.

bloodyteenagers · 16/09/2015 22:19

That only works if she wAnts a child.
That was said to my dd. her response was great, I will smoke more.
The addiction is terrible and it is often underestimated how hard it is to give up. The stresses of giving up. The stresses of live. The cravings. It's hard.
I stopped her allowance. Didn't make A difference, her mates gave her some. Then she got a job so made no difference.
She wasn't allowed to smoke in the house. This she did listen to. She's now trying to stop. She decided to.

Dontlaugh · 16/09/2015 22:20

She's 15. Very young.
Stop the cash. Packed lunch. Bus card.
Explanations etc.
I wouldn't call that making a "fuss". I'd probably class it under "giving a shit because I'm a parent".

specialsubject · 17/09/2015 10:05

stop excess finances. Stop doing her washing, she can do that, you don't want to wash stinky clothes. Make it clear that if she wants to smoke at home, she does it right at the end of the garden and downwind of others, and if it is raining - too bad.

give all the signals that this is a sad sack addiction, not a clever thing to do.

BTW whoever is selling them to her is breaking the law so it would be useful to know who that is.

violetwellies · 17/09/2015 10:17

Stop lunch money as well, I never bought a lunch with mine, neither did my brother.

TinklyLittleLaugh · 17/09/2015 10:27

Yes I stopped my 15 year old's allowance, made a massive fuss, did a bit of emotional blackmail, (told her her Dad was devastated by her smoking as her Gran had died of cancer).

She stopped and hasn't gone back to it.

JeffsanArsehole · 17/09/2015 10:27

I wouldn't give her one penny to buy fags so I would buy the things she asks for like cinema ticket/load a Starbucks card/buy her magazines and make up

Be aware though that she can get round that by her friends buying her fags and her buying them cinema tickets etc

Just make it as difficult as possible

cdtaylornats · 17/09/2015 10:34

Is she due at the dentist soon? Prime the dentist to comment that he can see she has started smoking because her teeth are slightly discoloured.

goldglittershitter · 17/09/2015 10:39

Stop any cash, ground her n tell the school so they can monitor her at breaks /lunch. She will hate it (n u!) but my line would be if u act like an irresponsible idiot, I shall treat u as one.

Kids now r well aware of the dangers so I would also be trying to understand why she was doing it. Peer pressure? Attention seeking? Whatever, I would try to work on that too.

I think my reaction is stronger than most posters but that is my honest opinion on how I'd play it. Under no circumstances would I treat this as a minor rebellion, I'd really launch the full on intervention hoping to catch her before she is addicted.

Good luck!

Floralnomad · 17/09/2015 10:41

iguana , I've never smoked but honestly if someone said to me to stop because I was damaging my eggs I wouldn't have given a shiny shit at 16 ! I agree with not funding the habit but if she is the type that is not going to stop then would an e cig be a better option whilst you work on her ?

JustDanceAddict · 17/09/2015 11:26

I would emphasise the damage smoking does to looks - yellow teeth, smelly, drawn face from the puffing and also find out why she is doing it? Peer pressure, does everyone smoke (doubt it). And def don't fund the habit -lunch money on a card, etc.! I would be very upset if either of mine started smoking and be very surprised too as they are very anti it at the moment.

MrsTrentReznor · 17/09/2015 11:40

I wish I had been stopped.
Took me 16 years to give it up!
The hardest thing my mum made me do was make me smoke a cigarette in front of my beloved Nanna. It was so hard, my Nanna was devastated.
Words wouldn't have done it. My teenage self was very stubborn.
Unfortunately I'd already been doing it for a few years when the Nanna smoking thing happened. Who knows what the outcome might have been if it had happened earlier.

antimatter · 17/09/2015 11:44

One of my friends stopped after his dad said to him - why don't you smoke in the house. We don't mind. It wasn't as glamorous any more.

Another friend stopped after his dad sat him in the house and made him smoke one many cigarets one after the other. Poor friend was sick after the tenth one and never touched them again.
I said to my kids if they start stopping this is what I am going to do to them. As an ex smoker I can easily do that (house would stink but I am sure it's worth it).

Original poster

icouldjusteatacroissant · 17/09/2015 23:37

Thanks all for your thoughts.

She isn't actually buying them, she's far too tight. She is getting them off friends.

She has grown up detesting smoking, and her grandad died of lung cancer. She is definitely doing it to fit in, as her best friend is smoking too. I haven't broached the subject yet as she isn't well, but will try the scare tactics to see if it will make a difference.

I hate smoking, particularly as my died of lung cancer, but I am an ex smoker, and started at 14. The things we do.

OP posts:

PacificDogwod · 18/09/2015 11:25

You could also try to play the 'cool' card and how being a 'sheep' and following what everybody does is just Not Cool.
Health is a tricky one to sell to teenager who consider themselves all immortal and invincible…
Is she a confident girl normally? You stress her being a wonderful individual in her own right and not having to follow what her friends do.

She does not sound like a hardened smoker to me

Good luck.

wickedwaterwitch · 18/09/2015 16:01

Yes, I'd make a fuss, you really want her to stop.

Good luck.

wickedwaterwitch · 18/09/2015 16:03

www.nhs.uk/Livewell/teengirls/Pages/teensmokers.aspx

I'd appeal to her vanity too

queenrollo · 18/09/2015 17:21

I smoked from being 14. Of all the reactions from parents when they cottoned on (my dad was a smoker too) the only one which really affected me was my mum's disappointment.
To be honest nothing they said or did made any difference.
I've given up twice (and yes starting up again was stupid, but happened during a time of great stress). It's hard to give up smoking. She really has to want to, and no amount of sanction or telling her the negative effects on her health and looks will make the blindest bit of difference if she still wants to do it.
Give her the info, do it on a level with her rather than it being a lecture and tell her you will support her giving up if she wants to.

Original poster

icouldjusteatacroissant · 18/09/2015 18:40

She's not a hardened smoker at all, no, but is desperate to fit it so doing whatever it takes I suppose.

Her dsis showed me a horrid experiment she found on the net somewhere, so will pick my moment and show her that.

But I also!remember being a teen and being invincible and immortal.

She is a complicated character actually, and is over confident in some situations and terrified in others

OP posts:

maria543 · 18/09/2015 18:47

I used to smoke. It was very hard to give up. I think it might have made a difference if somebody had actually given enough of a shit to talk to me about it. And talk to me about it kindly. Not all this business of stopping allowances and generally being punitive. That wouldn't have worked at all. But if someone had sat me down, and been kind, and said that they cared enough to want me to live, to want me not to hurt myself, to want me to have a good life. That would have worked. That's what I did with my youngest sister and it worked - she doesn't smoke (she's many years younger than me). But me and my middle sister smoked. I managed to give up, but she still smokes.

Flip

Swipe left for the next trending thread