How to Convince Your Parents to Quit Smoking

The difficult task of convincing your parents to quit smoking requires that you become well-informed. Presenting your parents with a full spectrum of issues connected with smoking can slowly hammer in your crucial message. Talk about smoking risks, to them and you, then explore the health, social and practical benefits of quitting smoking. After making an unassailable case, introduce your parents to a support program with state and local hotlines specially devised to assist people who want to quit smoking. Here's the compelling information to help convince your parents to quit smoking.

Talk About the Dangers of Smoking and Passive Smoking

To convince your parents to quit smoking make use of the fact that they love you by talking about secondhand smoke.

Secondhand smoke occurs when a tobacco product like a cigarette or cigar is burned. The person smoking the cigarette spreads the secondhand smoke further by exhaling smoke. Anyone in the vicinity who chooses not to engage in smoking inhales secondhand smoke all the same, a process termed passive smoking.

Secondhand smoke contains dangerous poisons like arsenic, cyanide, ammonia and carbon monoxide. The filter at the end of the cigarette protects the smoker by trapping some of these poisons, but nothing protects the person inhaling secondhand smoke.

To convince your parents to quit smoking, talk to them about the health risks they impose on you as well as themselves. According to the Mayo Clinic, second hand smoke "has been linked to heart attacks and a variety of cancers, including lung and breast cancers, [while] children who are exposed to secondhand smoke have a higher risk of developing pneumonia, bronchitis, asthma and allergies (reference 1)."

Talk About Consideration for Others

While your parents may not quit smoking immediately, you can urge them to take steps to protect those around them from passive smoking. Smoking outdoors allows the noxious tobacco smoke to disperse quickly. Making your home and car smoke-free zones, rather than simply opening the windows while smoking, maintains a toxin-free environment. Since both solutions impose restrictions on the act of smoking, your parents may start smoking less as a result.

Talk About the Benefits of Quitting Smoking

Encourage your parents to quit smoking by talking about the benefits that follow. The unpleasant odor of nicotine that clings to the hair, clothes and breath of smokers disappears within a few days of quitting. Fingernails and teeth that turned yellow slowly begin to whiten. Even the sense of smell improves in people who quit smoking, causing food to taste better. Health risks associated with smoking fade gradually, and the person who quits smoking begins to breathe better and feel an increase in energy levels (reference 2).

Talk About Family Advantages of Quitting Smoking

A University of Washington study reveals that teenage children who live with parents who smoke may pick up the habit themselves (reference 3). Whether you belong to this age group or know of children who interact with your Mother and Father, talk to your parents about the example they set before the younger generation. If the smoking habit makes their lives harder, urge them not to encourage others to walk the same path.

Talk About the Practical Advantages of Quitting Smoking

While your parents find it difficult to imagine a life without smoking, you can paint them a rosy picture. Without smoking, finding an apartment, hotel room, rental car or restaurant becomes easy. Finding or keeping a job becomes easier without the smell of nicotine and the need to take cigarette breaks. Finally, the money once spent on expensive cigarettes can purchase things that make life better for both you and your

parents.

Talk to Your Parents About Getting Help

Tell your parents about SmokeFree.gov, a website dedicated to helping smokers quit. Created by the Tobacco Control Research Branch of the National Cancer Institute, the website provides a step-by-step smoking guide, general information and support group information for local and state quit-lines.

Recommended Reading: Mayo Clinic: Nicotine Craving

References

1. Mayo Clinic: Secondhand Smoke

2. Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center: Smoking and Smokeless Tobacco

3. University of Washington: News

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