Parents usually are at a loss to respond in a constructive manner when they discover their kids smoking. The first impulse is often to get angry, ground the child, and declare that cigarettes are forever banned from the home. Of course, this usually has very little impact on smoking children. All it does is drive the problem underground. If you have caught your children smoking at home, there are constructive ways to deal with the situation. Here are a few tips to help you with kids smoking.

First, realize that children smoking is not unusual. Every new generation will experiment and test limits. If you found your child smoking, the first thing to do is find out when his or her experimentation began. You also want to find out what your child finds attractive about kids smoking. Once you know what is going on and why, it is much easier to deal with the reality of the situation and find a solution.

Smoking kids often begin because they see smoking as enhancing their place in society in some manner. While we as adults know there is nothing about children smoking cigarettes that is desirable, our perspective and priorities are very different from that of our kids. When we begin to understand the exact reasons why children smoke, it is easier to help them understand that kids smoking is not going to get them what they want in the long run.

One thing to keep in mind is that you may be the root cause of your kid smoking. The fact is that a lot of kids smoking begins because they see their parents doing the same thing. If Mom and Dad do it, then it can’t be all bad, right? Cracking down on a smoking kid when you have the habit yourself is sending a message of hypocrisy. Before anything you have to share about smoking will get through to your kids, make sure you are following the same counsel.

You may want to try showing your child a picture of a kid smoking a cigarette. Talk about how this looks and what is happening to the child as he or she smokes the cigarette. Discuss such matters as nicotine affecting the receptors in the brain, the bad breath, and the yellow stains on the fingers. Make the picture come to life as you get into the damage that smoking does to the lungs and the other life threatening diseases that can emerge from becoming a smoker. Use those kids smoking pics to start the conversation and then build from there.

Of course, kids smoking pot is all the more serious. Some children smoking pot do not realize that many of the same health problems that come from smoking tobacco can also come from smoking marijuana. Little kids smoking weed are only getting an early start at making their lives harder in years to come. Show your pot smoking kids visual images of what smoking in any form will do to the body and ask them if they want to live like that. By appealing to both their sense of appearance and their need to be healthy all their lives, you might be able to stop your kids smoking.