DS was pretending to smoke.

[minkajane]

DS had a little white straw today and said "Look Mommy, I'm pretending to smoke." I told him not to, that smoking was really unhealthy, but I caught him taking it out of his mouth with two fingers, then saying he was breathing in fire. After that, I made him throw it away.

DS's grandparents smoke and he knows DH smokes the occasional cigar (a few times a year at most and always after DS goes to bed). How do you teach a kid that smoking is really unhealthy when they see it around them all the time?

[SandraS]

It's perfectly normal for the little one to mimic what the big people are doing, and it doesn't mean in the least that he will want to start smoking next month - really.

They will mimic smoking, drinking a glass of wine, flying a kite, you name it - it's all innocent pretend play. This goes with pretend gun play too - doesn't mean they'll grow up to shoot someone.

It's harmless. Trying to explain the harm now won't do much good since it's beyond their comprehension (heck, it's beyond some 30 year old's comprehension)!

[Youngfrankenstein]

^ What she said. My middle child (now 8) has imitated smoking and his grandmother "died from it". I haven't seen him do it in several months.

[4evermom]

My ds did that for a while, too. And no one in the family smokes. I can't actually imagine ds taking it up (he's so sensitive, lol, I don't think he'd manage to inhale). But he liked to pretend for a time. It was just his noticing that the straw, or pretzel, looked like a cigarette. More recently, he's been pretending to be drunk. I'm not worried about that, either, since he won't drink anything but water and apple juice.

[glorio]

My ds was just doing this last night. He knows it hurts your lungs and can eventually kill you, but he also knows I used to do it, and so did his Dad. I think he's really curious about the appeal of it, why so many people would want to do it even if it can hurt you so much.

I think a lot of kids are curious about this.

I obviously do not encourage this, but I don't think it's a sign of his future either.

[enigo]

My son smokes his lollipop stick after he is done with it. He even holds it "properly". My mother and sister in law both smoke. Since they go outside to do it (We have glass french doors) he has watched them and must figure it's something interesting since they have to go outside to do iy.
The first time he did it, (at about 2, he's just turned 3 now) I thought I was going to be sick. I detested my mother's 2 pack a day habit as a child...still do. However I figured as with anything else, if I freak over it, he'll really think it's something cool. He rarely has a lollipop anyway.

[Daffodil]

If your kid is pretending to smoke, it doesn't mean he doesn't understand that real smoking is unhealthy. My DD went through a phase of pretending to smoke a lot when she was 3 or so, and she still does it sometimes. She understands perfectly well that it's unhealthy. She knows her grandfather died before she was born because he smoked. She says she will never, ever smoke. But she still thinks it's fun to pretend she has a cigarette. I don't discourage it, or even care about it.

[meemee]

at 3 my dd pretended too. today at 6 after her dad and i spoke about the evils of smoking when her school introduced no to drugs at 5 she is a v. v. strong advocate against it.

at 3 i let it slide. i didnt encourage or discourage her.

[mightymoo]

I talk to my kids all the time about how unhealthy smoking is. Every time we see someone smoking we talk about it. Luckily we don't have anyone in our family who smokes in front of them. My father for a while was smoking 'secretly' (that means he thought it was a secret, we all knew) but at least the children didn't see him. His health has declined sharply partially due to the smoking and I've explained that to my children. He had to have a toe amputated because he's diabetic and it became infected and the smoking exacerbates issues like that. 4 months later he's still trying to heal his foot. So I tie it directly in (because it really is related, everything I read says the worst thing a diabetic can do for their feet is smoke), I tell them he smoked and he shouldn't have and as a result they had to cut off his toe (they already know he had to have a toe removed, heck if I let them he'd show it to them

My parents smoked when I was a kid, but quit when I was young (dad took it back up a few years ago ) and at that time my mother instilled in me how bad it was - she quit because her mother's health declined as a result, and I can't ever have seen myself being susceptible to doing it. I used to sit around as a kid in middle school / high school and think of witty retorts I would make when someone offered me a cigarette (no one ever did btw). I think that was a direct result of my mother starting in on us very young about how bad drugs and smoking were. However, I still can distinctly remember being 11 or 12 at a campground with my cousin lighting the ends of sticks and pretending to smoke them. I do agree its not indicative of whether a child thinks smoking is okay. I remember doing that and then noticing my grandmother watching us from inside the RV and I felt so ashamed for doing it.

[HappilyEvrAfter]

I do agree with what everyone has said...that it will probably pass.

BUT this in one thing that is not allowed when I'm around. Call it a pet peeve or whatever.
My kid's dad smokes at his house and he started pretending to do it when he came home..."it's cool cause daddy does it".
Every time it comes up I emphasize the implications of smoking. The bottom line I express is that it's one preventable habit that can cause an early death.
Then again, I also let him know that when he's 18 and out of the house that he can make that choice for himself. It may not stop him in the end, but I think it's my part of teaching him what's healthy and what's not healthy.

I know he's still little and may not fully understand, but I want the words in his head. The earlier the better about some things. We talk about drugs and alcohol too.

Then, I've had some adverse family incidents that revolved around smoking to push this to the top of my early teaching lessons.