When Your Kids' Friends Smoke: Info About When & Why They Start

As the parent of one teenager and two almost-teens (12-year-old twins), I often find myself remembering back to what it was like when I was in middle school and high school. Our daughter, Brynn, is a freshman in high school and while she doesn't smoke (her great-grandmother died after a horrible battle with throat cancer, in which she eventually had to have most of her tongue cut out; and this seemed to have a profound effect on her attitude towards cigarettes), many of her friends do.  Aidan and Shea are in sixth grade and I hadn't really started bracing myself for the subject in relation to their maturity yet. But yesterday, the boys came home from school to inform me that one of their good friends was no longer allowed to attend the upcoming sixth grade festivities, because his mother had caught him smoking, after stealing money out of her purse to buy the cigs.

My first reaction was that of surprise; but after I had some time to dwell on it, I realized that it might not be THAT shocking after all; and that it is probably not uncommon for a boy their age to try and find out for himself what the smoking fuss is all about. So I started looking into the statistics for initial exposure to the smoking scene and found out that each day, between 82,000 and 99,000 young people around the world start smoking and that the average age when they begin is thirteen. *

In 2007, the University of Florida conducted a study that was published in the American Journal of Health Promotion, in which they surveyed 7,795 adolescents in seventh, eighth, and ninth grades and found that 23 percent of the high-school age children considered themselves smokers; while 8 percent of the middle school students did. The percentage of girls who smoked was slightly higher in both age groups and many of them cited the initiation of a diet as a link to their main reason for beginning; believing that it would suppress their appetite if they smoked.

The Lung Association lists other reasons that kids begin smoking on their web site as:

• "My friends smoke."
• "I just wanted to try it."
• "I thought it was cool."
• "My parents smoke."

The page also states that one of the "biggest reasons teens start to smoke is peer influence. Over 70 per cent of teens say that having friends who smoke and/or peer pressure is the number one reason for starting to smoke."

Do you smoke?  If you do, what age did you start? 

Do you think that beginning at a young age makes it more difficult to quit if when you become an adult?

Photo by Subharnab

*The Lung Association, 2008 statistics