How to help your child quit smoking

An ex-smoker shares his tips on how you can help your child quit smoking.

Dear parent,

It seems that you ve just found out that your son (or daughter) has been smoking cigarettes for a long time. You are angry and hurt at the same time.

You are intent on stopping your child from continuing this, and have already lectured him for an hour s about the harmful effects of smoking. You have threatened him, used the emotional blackmail card and even dished out a few hard slaps.

Despite that, you are worried. You should be because making a teenager quit smoking is difficult. It is not your battle to fight, but your son s.

Before I proceed to tell you what I think you should do, let me share my story as someone who smoked for five years before quitting.

I started smoking when I was 18 (first tried it when I was 17). I would be very conscious of hiding my tracks, and made sure that I didn t smell of tobacco when I met my mother. However, as days passed and the number of cigarettes I smoked increased, it became tougher to conceal my habit. Eventually, I was caught and there was pandemonium at my house. My mother stressed the importance of quitting, and I stressed the importance of choice. Despite her strict orders, I would continue to sneak in a few cigarettes and smoke it in the balcony when she was busy.

During this time itself, I had gone outside Mumbai for my college education, where I was free to do as I pleased with no interference and that certainly made me a much bigger nicotine junkie.

Thankfully, some mishaps happened (which were a blessing in disguise) that helped me recover from my addiction. Using my experience quitting smoking as a reference, here are a few things that I think you should do that will make things easier for your son.

Create a health-oriented environment. The No. 1 incentive for quitting smoking is that it can significantly improve one s health. If you can make your child health conscious somehow, then you have won almost half the battle. Following healthy habits like sleeping on time, eating fruits, going to the gym and never skipping breakfast are the basics of being healthy are just some things which should be made compulsory in your household. Read about the 9 things that helped me quit smoking. For good.

Do not ban things. A lot of parents ban their children from going outside or meeting with their friends. This does not help. If your child is eager to smoke, he will find a way to do it. In fact, banning things will make him even more determined to smoke as soon as he finds freedom. Certainly, you cannot keep him as your prisoner for life, so such an attitude will backfire.

Make it a one-point time-based goal. Keep it simple. Tell him that he doesn t have to worry about anything else for the first two months. Allow him to perform poorly in exams, skip tuitions or quit his job for this period, and focus solely on escaping from the prison that nicotine addiction is. The withdrawal symptoms from quitting smoking can make one extremely anxious, and any external pressure can lead to a breakdown and relapse.

Take a long vacation. It will be a good idea to take your son to some interesting place that he has dreamt of visiting. Travelling to new places does make one feel happier, and can be a good way to deal with the sadness that accompanies nicotine withdrawal.

Buy him Allen Carr s Easyway to Stop Smoking. This is easily the most famous book on quitting smoking, and for good reason. Celebrities like Ashton Kutcher and Ellen DeGeneres have quit after reading the book. Carr s claim is that quitting smoking is easy and there is in fact nothing to give up, only to gain. The book is filled with useful insight and tips that will help your child become more confident.

Keep rewarding him for every landmark that he achieves.The first 72 hours are the toughest to get through. Reward him after he crosses that landmark. After that, give him a gift after he completes a week, a month and a year to commemorate and celebrate quitting smoking.

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