Talk to Your Kids About Smoking

Yes, it is still important to talk to your kids about the dangers of smoking. However, sometimes the usual stop-smoking speeches go in one ear and out of the other. They hear it at school and on commercials and after a while, it just turns into background noise. If you have nightmares about the day that you smell smoke on your baby's clothes, then its time to employ some creative ideas to make sure that that day never comes.

Big Payoff

Sometimes, its all about positive reinforcement. If scaring your kids out of smoking just results in a lot of eye-rolling, don't be afraid to bribe them. When my sisters and I were younger, my parents sat us down and talked to us about smoking. I don't remember any of the details. What I do remember is that, at the end of the speech, he promised each of us $500 on our 21^st birthdays if we hadn't had a cigarette by then. I was seven at the time, and that was more money than I'd ever heard of. And as the youngest of my three sisters, I got to see each of them get their big pay-offs during my most vulnerable years. None of us have picked up a cigarette to this day, and I plan on using this method when my children are old enough.

Scare the Poop out of Them

Most discussions about the dangers of smoking are usually accompanied by a pamphlet that lists the chemicals contained in cigarettes and the dangers that they pose to your body. But, we all know that when you're young, you feel immortal. And big, hard to understand words on a folded up piece of paper doesn't always get the message through. They are too young to understand how devastating sickness can be.

To really get your message across (and this is a great tactic to employ if you have already caught your child smoking), make a trip to your local hospital. Call ahead of time and tell them that you are looking for a way to deter your child from smoking and see if you can drop in on one of the patients there that will more than likely be eager to help keep your child from making the same mistakes that they did.

Have Them Calculate How Much It Will Cost

If your children are at an age where they receive an allowance, or have their first job, make sure they understand the financial investment that smoking requires. Cigarettes run around $7 a pack. And for arguments sake, argue that the average smoker smokes around a pack a day. That's $50 per week without tax included. But don't stop there. Tell them that they will spend $200 a month, and $2400 a year.

To put it in more concrete terms, ask them what they could do with that money instead. Get them to talk about $200 a month in terms of things that they like. How many i-tunes songs is it? How many concerts could they go to? How many pairs of shoes is that? For added incentive, talk about their allowance in terms of "not smoking money". If they get $30 a week, assume that's how much a smoker would spend (just for argument's sake) and tell them that they'll receive that amount of allowance as long as they stay smoke free.

Show Them Who the Real enemy Is

If, by the time you get around to "the talk" you already have teens or pre-teens on your hands, you might need to employ a more teen-friendly method. Try telling your kids about the more sinister side of the cigarette industry. Cigarette companies add 597 additives to tobacco in order to get people more addicted. And they do this knowing that over 40 of these additives have a high potential to give you cancer. If news about the carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, cyanide or arsenic doesn't turn them off, point out the fact that the cigarette companies are making suckers out of them. Nervous about a formal confrontation? The next time you pass by a smoker, wonder out loud why someone would let a company trick them into making themselves sick and then pay for the privilege to boot.