BY CHARLOTTE WEBSTER
Parents who smoke in the presence of children are very reckless, and parents should be careful when they smoke at home.
During visits to some of my friend’s, I have noticed a care free tendency for some parents to smoke in the presence of their young children. This is easily done where fathers or mothers want to be able to feel free to smoke whilst their children are around, forgetting the huge risk they are subjecting their children to.
After recently confronting a 26 year old mother of one, it was surprising when she thought the fact her mother did it makes it alright. ”I am alright even though my mother smoked around me”the lady who I won’t name, told me. This is a woman has not even had an x ray done to examine the internal state of her body, but the fact she feels alright, in her world means she is alright. I did not hesitate to alert her to the fact that feeling alright and being alright ate two different things. The full effects of a harmful activity may be delayed in its consequences, although history proves that some people escape the worst effects of smoking, and live quite long.
One important pout I drew to her attention , was the need to give every child the right to choose whether they want to passive smokers. It is selfish to impose our own poor standards on little children, who are only here because their parents brought them here. Parents who smoke close to their children are incredibly reckless and should wake up to this fact. Continuous smoking in close proximity to children is passive smoking, and exposes the children to possibility of getting cancer at some stage in their lives, even if they never smoke.
Parents must be conscious of the health of their children even if they are not bothered about their own health. A number of parents carelessly smoke cigarettes, and dear I say, even cannabis, in the presence of young children under the age of 10. Children easily get influenced, so that children used to seeing their parents smoke may find it easier to give in to peer pressure on school to start smoking. The scary thing is the harm that can come to children in their growing years just from passive smoking. People tend to be distracted by the fact that there are many adults who smoked for decades without catching cancer.
What such individuals overlook is the fact that there are a lot of people who get cancer despite having never smoked before. Positively showing there are those who will not escape the dangers of passive smoking even though life has shown us that some people indeed escape the effects of a life time of smoking, defying the odds by living long. We are dealt different cards, and parents should never be reckless enough to smoke close to children. Not even in the same room. Many parents today take lack of common sense and maturity from their childhood into adult life, but careful reasoning and disciplined practices is all parents need to be the best example they can be to their children.
Parents should not take their bad habits to their children. This is the reason children are encouraged and expected to learn good habits and develop discipline, awareness, and education, so that they can grow into responsible parents eventually. A parent who is reckless enough to smoke with a young child in the room, is not likely to be one to train their children to eat healthily even if they themselves have not developed the discipline of healthy eating and living. Every parent should be conscious of giving their child the best exposure possible to health eating and lifestyle. All it takes is conscious effort, and schools should co-ordinate closely with parents to raise their awareness of what is expected of them, and regularly check to see what progress is being made in terms of practical application.
