Should teens be allowed to smoke at home?

Not only should you forbid your teenager to smoke at home, you should firmly discourage him from smoking anywhere, ever. Allowing a teen to smoke at home is comparable to allowing him or her to ingest poison, right under your very nose. Admittedly, the carcinogens in tobacco are slow-acting poisons in most cases, but medical science has left no doubt that poisons they certainly are.

Smokers are more prone than non-smokers to many diseases: lung cancer, pneumonia, bronchitis, heart disease, stroke, blood vessel damage, Lupus, Grave's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and acid reflux disease among others. It makes snoring more likely, because of irritation and inflammation of the upper respiratory system. It causes a build up of plaque in the arteries which may cause impotence, as well as high blood pressure. Men who smoke are more likely to experience erectile dysfunction.

Among a parent's duties are to raise a healthy child, and to teach him good health habits which will enable him to preserve this good health throughout life. By allowing a child to smoke in your presence, you are paving the way for a powerful addiction, one which will be extremely difficult to break.

Researchers have found that nicotine addiction is one of the strongest addictions known to man. By allowing a young person to smoke at home, you are not only damaging his or her health, you are also enabling him to acquire a potent addiction which could very well lead to his early death.

Parents are the first and most important role models for their children. The most effective lessons are taught by example. Adults in a teenager's life should be exceptional examples of enthusiastic non-smokers. They should comment when a friend or relative becomes sick, disabled or dies because of smoking. They should allow no smoking in their own home and refuse to visit the homes of friends who are addicted to tobacco. They should not patronize restaurants, bars, or other establishments where smoking is allowed. They should show their distaste and aversion to the smoking habit whenever they find an opportunity.

If you as a parent are still entertaining doubts about the wisdom of allowing your teenager to smoke at home, please, for a minute, consider this scenario. Your child is in his or her early thirties. With a spouse, he or she has just started a family. A medical check-up reveals that your child has acquired lung cancer, due to an extreme sensitivity to tobacco smoke. Ahead lies the grim reality or surgery, chemotherapy, radiation treatments and possibly death.

Will you remember then the easy compatibility of those first few cigarettes you enjoyed together? Will you be patting yourself on the back for being such an understanding parent? Will you be glad you tried to be a pal to your teen, instead of a parent? Somehow, I don't think these notions will be uppermost in your mind.

Teens need parents to be parents. They have enough friends who are around their own age. Do your teen one of the greatest favors possible. From the earliest age, teach him or her the dangers of smoking, and repeat the lesson often all through the formative years.

Refuse to let him smoke at home, and threaten strict consequences if you hear of him smoking at all before his nineteenth birthday. After that he'll make his own decisions about smoking and everything else in his life.

However, remember that it will always be your decision about who may or may not smoke in your home. You will always have a right and a duty to protect the lives and the health of those visiting or actually living under your own roof.