Youths dragged down by smoking

Smoking

All parents realize the health and safety hazards of smoking and want to protect their children from it, even if they themselves smoke. But the attraction of smoking is complex, and there's no simple strategy you can use to prevent your child from starting. Although smoking is often viewed as a teen problem, it actually first becomes an addiction in childhood. A 1998 national study by Statistics Canada showed that 6 per cent of kids between the ages of ten and twelve years were beginning smokers. In that same age range, 2 per cent of children were already regular smokers.

Smoking persists as a problem, despite years of anti-smoking campaigns and the revelations about tobacco manufacturers. The Addiction Research Foundation in Ontario has conducted a comprehensive survey every two years since 1977. It surveys students in grades seven through twelve and asks whether they've smoked more than one cigarette in the previous twelve months. The numbers hit a peak in 1979 and steadily declined until 1991. But after 1991 , the figures shot up again to the point that, by 1997, they were back close to the 1979 high. In 1997, almost 29 per cent of girls and 26 per cent of boys reported smoking. Since that time, cigarette use has once again dropped; the latest figures published in 2003 showed 20 per cent of girls and 18 per cent of boys as having smoked 6 or more cigarettes in the past year.

What factors lead children to smoke? One answer is in their own homes. Canadian studies show that children who have a parent who smokes are more likely to start themselves. Having friends who smoke is another important factor. One study showed that 46 per cent of kids aged ten to fourteen who called themselves casual smokers had five or more friends who smoked. Only 1 per cent of casual smokers had no friends who smoked. But perhaps the biggest factor of all is school. The strongest predictor of how many grade six students at a school will smoke is how many grade eight students at that school light up. Although all schools are officially No Smoking areas, older kids are very, precise about standing just over the line between school property, and public property, perhaps on the sidewalk. Younger kids may just look up to the coolest kids in the school -- the grade eights -- and want to be like them.

Deconstructing the smoking ritual

One of the reasons it's so hard to fight smoking is that the habit appears to offer social benefits from the kids' point of view. A groundbreaking 1998 study by a Toronto anthropologist, Grant McCracken, shows that smoking has very clearly defined rituals that make social interactions much easier. The way you light a cigarette, the way you hold it, even the way you throw it away, are all clearly defined skills that kids carefully practise. Mastering the rituals not only smooths over social interactions but helps create a worldly personality for the smoker at a time when most kids don't feel especially confident. In a kid's world, smoking is one of the fastest ways to improve his image. It's also a convenient way, to rebel. The more the adult world tells kids not to smoke, the more attractive it becomes.

Try fighting the powerful allure of the smoking ritual using several different strategies. Talk with your child about the smokers and the smoking you see on television or in movies or when you're out together. Show how cigarettes are used to break the ice or to cover up awkward moments. It helps de-glamorize the whole process when you show how strictly the smokers follow conventions. There's nothing worse than finding out how conventional your behaviour really is when you're trying to be a rebel.