I have a 17 yr old who is smoking...I've taken the cigs when I find them and she said they weren't hers!! (yeah, like I fell off the banana truck yesterday)...Now she is coming home smelling like cigarettes and now I know she is really smoking. I can't find the cigs anymore, but she stinks....I tell her I want her to quit and it's yeah, mom, yeah mom......She is a very strong-willed child with a Big Attitude....any suggestions????I need help/advice. P.S. She is the middle child (all girls). Thanks

show what happens to smokers after a while...i.e. the health museum where she can see the end results of diseased lungs and some of the horrible surgeries that people have to go through when they get throat and lung cancers...tracheotemies (i have no idea how to spell that) and other such possibilities...maybe then she will see how "cool" it is...

go to a health online thing and show her everything that could go wrong.......leave little notes with the disease names on them to remind her of it(i.e. in a lunch box...so when she goes to eat she sees it) and most of all keep telling her you love her....i starte donce for the attention til i realized i didnt need it and my mom loved me too....try that and good luck

thanks...I've already given that speech to her...and she says she willquit......blah blah blah

Don't know what to say. I smoke myself and I'm kind of proud of it.

thanks I will try that....seeing it in black and white may help...

well steel, u should quit! I'ts bad for you!

i was in her scenerio years ago...my parents kept telling me to quit...they tried everything...threats, punishments, yelling, taking the smokes....EVERYTHING, nothing worked cause the more they yelled at me the more i wanted to do it....and the honest to god truth is i love my mother, and she decided to sit me down and tell me "i know i can't make you quit, but it breaks my heart seeing you killing yourself like this" and put me on a whole guilt trip....it worked until i turned 18 and my life went upside down...basically use the love they have for you against them is what my parents believed.....hope that helps, i suck at explaining things....lol

thanks josh, I do appreciate it, especially since you were in "her boat". We are like oil and water anyways......
But I will try everything at this point.

----huh?

My daughter and I ----like oil and water...we don't see eye to eye...For me to sit down and tell her I love her, blah, blah, blah....she likes "her own life"...like I said strong-willed at 17

let her know who vrought her into the world and who can take her back out....lol j/k

Oh don't u worry, dpw....I've said that many a times...lol I STILL THE BOSS!

lol u go girl...*snap snap snap*

I dont have kids so I really wouldnt know but my advice would be to not tell her to quit to sit down and ask her why she does it alot of teenagers do it because of stress they might have I know thats what happened to me and ask her what she gets out of it like ask does it get you friends does it make you popular stuff like that you know.

American Lung Association.com has a great site....If you can get some of their posters...maybe it'll scare her straight. Its not just the nicotine...there are so many toxins in tobacco...
I've seen a lot of brochures...like 101 things I could buy if I didn't smoke.
Wishing you luck

got news for you, breathing is bad for you.

jsut being alive is bad for you.....it's always fatal.

tell them about me...I was a dumb kid that started smoking as a teen.

By age 19 I had my 1st open heart surgery.

By age 22 I had my 2nd open heart surgery.

Now at age 24 I will never touch another cigarette again.


It doesnt just kill people whom are middle aged or older. It kills babies, kids, and teens....tell your 17 year old that.

Is the price of chancing a cigarette worth her life? Or multiple life threatning surgeries?


I had to learn the hard way. Hope this hard lesson will help.

ok... here is a very arrogant way to do it...but it has helped me when I want to light up...


it may be cool and hardcore now...
but when she's 30 and looks like she's 50, it wont be so hot...especially with her yellow skin tone and yellow teeth and her tainted fingers and her smelly hair and all those wrinkles and little lines on around her mouth...oh yea...that is so hard core...
and
she can always meet hot doctors...in chemo!

how hard headed is she?because my mom didn't find out i smoked til i was 18 and although she knew there was nothing she could do,she told me she knew if she got rid of them i would just go buy more,so if she's pretty stubborn there's not much you can do.sorry