Parents will probably be the single biggest influence on their long term health

One of the challenges that every parent with teenage children has to face is trying to prevent them from smoking. This is no easy task as practically every single teenager does go through a phase of smoking which they hope will be short lived. There are many things that parents can do to prevent teenage smoking habits becoming a lifelong addiction many of which are plain common sense.

Firstly if you are a smoker you greatly increase the chances of your children smoking and if you are serious about getting your children to be smoke free the first person you need to deal with is yourself!

Many parents never even bother to have a conversation with the teenage children about smoking somehow believing that their little darlings could never possibly be smokers, but research shows that children as young as twelve can start a regular smoking habit.

Explaining how powerful a nicotine addiction can be is a useful start to warning your children away from smoking. It is definitely worth getting the facts and figures regarding disease and illness related to smoking so that they can see for themselves exactly how dangerous it is.

Telling your teenage son for example that he is twice as likely to suffer from impotence and testicular cancer as he grows up if he smokes could be far more effective than grounding him when you catch him with a cigarette. You could also tell your teenage daughter that she is much more likely to experience breast cancer if she continues to smoke which could result in her having to have a mastectomy operation. Smoking also reduces fertility in both men and women.

Explain to your children that while they might think that they can control their smoking habit now, one day it will grab hold of them and they may not be able to simply throw away their cigarettes. Talk to your children about the peer pressure that they feel to smoke so that they will know that you understand what they are going through.

As a parent never forget that you will probably be the single biggest influence on their long term health.