How to Keep Your Child Away From Smoking
Smoking is a very harmful habit for our health, environment and for others in our surroundings. Nicotine is the most addictive drug found in tobacco and intake of this drug is so harmful that it stops our body growth and causes various diseases like tuberculosis, mouth and throat ulcer, heart disease, cancer and respiratory infections. No parent wants their kids to smoke.
Since smoking is our strongest enemy; so you must figure out some ways to keep your child away from this enemy. Here are few suggestions to help you out.
• Keep your child well informed
As a parent, you should educate your child about the possible threats related to smoking. This topic is often discussed in schools. So try to know, how far he knows that smoking is injurious to health. Have an open discussion. Keep your child well informed by citing concrete examples of people who are facing severe health problems and diseases due to smoking habits so that he/she can realize its ill effects and keep themselves away from this bad habit.
• Know your child’s immediate environment
Try to know with whom your child spends most of the time. Invite his friends at home. Try to keep a watch on their behavior by becoming friendly with them. Children usually learn to smoke from their close friend circle.
• Be friendly
To talk about tricky issues like smoking and drinking, you will have to establish a good friend like relation with your child. Your love and warm affection will help him / her to open up. Build up his self-confidence which will help him to protect against peer pressure. While discussing sensitive topics like this, don’t be judgmental. Encourage child to participate in sports and other activities that prohibit smoking.
Parents are the role model of their children. What they say, how they act and their values, their deeds everything influence children very much. So you have to be roll model of your children. If you smoke, quit smoking; however hard it may be. The parents who quit smoking, their kids also give up smoking easily if they are trapped into this bad habit.
