'why do people smoke?' -- explaining addictions etc

[**guest**]

i find i am not as eloquent as i would want to be :LOL

how do you explain smoking / addictions to a 3 y o? she knows smoking hurts the lungs, and wants to know why would people still smoke.

i said 'bad habits' :

ideas???

[mamaduck]

I told my kids that its a bad choice, but sometimes people make bad choices. Most people don't completetly understand how much their body will keep wanting it, and that they will loose the ability to make the choice easily after they start.

[Doodlebugsmom]

Dd is really into the "why is he/she smoking?" phase right now. She usually says it very loud, in front of the smoker!:LOL She knows that it isn't healthy and can make people sick. I tell her that it's just a choice that some grown-ups make.

[Denise K]

Smoking killed Dh's mom, so he is pretty vocal about its effects. This can be hard for ds when people he cares about are smokers.... Also at 3 he was really interested whenever he saw anyone smoking. So here is my take on it all:

I tell him (particularly at 3--it seemed to be the age for that) that sometimes people do things that aren't wise. "Like what?" So I told him stories about things I have done that weren't wise (like not eating breakfast and getting really cranky), and other examples. People can be really great people and still make mistakes. I feel good about not hiding from him the fallibility of adults.

I also just told him the word "addicted," and said that when you are addicted to cigarettes it is really hard to quit smoking them, harder than almost anything. So it's important never to even start.

And I tell ds that not everyone gets sick or dies from smoking--that every smoker would probably be healthier if they quit, but that many smokers live a long time. It's a trick to try and balance the seriousness of the risk with not wanting to terrify him about his grandfather and uncle and friends. I tell him we can hope that the people we love will quit, and that they don't get sick, and if they are trying to quit we can give them extra hugs to help out.

My Df has since quit smoking (after many many tries), and DS was very happy. (Me too.) And he understood what was going on.

Also, be prepared for a possible bunch of play about cigarettes, if you haven't seen it yet. Ds was obsessed for a while. He talked about smoking, pretended to smoke, claimed he would smoke when he grew up, etc etc. His friend the same age did it too. Not so much any more--just letting you know so you can take it in stride.

[Bearsmama]

My DS (3.6) saw someone smoking yesterday and said, "Look, mommy, that man has a pacifier". I have to remember to write this one down! :LOL

[RubyWild]

This recently came up for me. My daughter had never seen anyone smoking. It's illegal to do it in most public places here, other than walking down the street, and I think most people are afraid to do even that. So, we were in another town and my daughter saw a man smoking. She asked him - a complete stranger in a doorway we were walking in - what he was doing. Ack! He immediately responded, "Slowly committing suicide." OMG, it's true, but how do I explain all of that? What is suicide? Why would someone do that? and I really had a mess of a conversation on my hands, and all I was trying to do was walk into a building.

Long story short, I answered her questions as simply as I possibly could until she was satisfied. It's an issue we'll have to revisit, I'm sure.

[beccaboo]

Denise, I've done the same thing talking about addiction. Particularly since my ds (6 yo) knows his grandma smokes cigarettes, I want him to understand that smoking is not a good thing, but that people who smoke aren't necessarily bad people. He knows that there's a drug called nicotine in cigarettes that makes people want/need more, and that it's really hard to stop once you start. (I like how you phrased that, mamaduck.)

[teachma]

For us, the explanation came kind of easy. I am a nail-biter, and ds (5) has mild, and sometimes not so mild, OCD. So, we know a little something about "habits!" I explained that unlike our habits, smoking even harder to quit because cigarettes have a chemical in them that makes a person's body want more and more, so even if their mind tells them to stop because it's unheallthy, their body wants to continue because it feels like it needs the chemical.

[~member~]

Originally Posted by Denise K

Smoking killed Dh's mom, so he is pretty vocal about its effects. This can be hard for ds when people he cares about are smokers.... Also at 3 he was really interested whenever he saw anyone smoking. So here is my take on it all:

I tell him (particularly at 3--it seemed to be the age for that) that sometimes people do things that aren't wise. "Like what?" So I told him stories about things I have done that weren't wise (like not eating breakfast and getting really cranky), and other examples. People can be really great people and still make mistakes. I feel good about not hiding from him the fallibility of adults.

I also just told him the word "addicted," and said that when you are addicted to cigarettes it is really hard to quit smoking them, harder than almost anything. So it's important never to even start.

And I tell ds that not everyone gets sick or dies from smoking--that every smoker would probably be healthier if they quit, but that many smokers live a long time. It's a trick to try and balance the seriousness of the risk with not wanting to terrify him about his grandfather and uncle and friends. I tell him we can hope that the people we love will quit, and that they don't get sick, and if they are trying to quit we can give them extra hugs to help out.

My Df has since quit smoking (after many many tries), and DS was very happy. (Me too.) And he understood what was going on.

Also, be prepared for a possible bunch of play about cigarettes, if you haven't seen it yet. Ds was obsessed for a while. He talked about smoking, pretended to smoke, claimed he would smoke when he grew up, etc etc. His friend the same age did it too. Not so much any more--just letting you know so you can take it in stride.

Thank you. I really like how you explained that. I also talked to my children about people who were not taught about how to keep their bodies healthy. Also, about the fact that a lot of older smokers didn't know it was dangerous, because before there was lots of misinformation and lots of ads, people, and doctors who thought it was good for them.
I always try to get my children thinking and asking about stuff that looks 'everday' but may not be the best idea/choice for an individual, kwim?
When my children were younger I helped work on ideas for the large chronic inebraite population in Minneapolis. So, they have seen and learned from that, also.