<p>Missypie- I wish you the best. When you first posted, it wasn’t clear that your Dd was already in counseling and had been diagnosed with depression and attention deficit. Do you feel that her smoking is part of these larger issues? If so, maybe the willingness to quit will come if she can resolve or work around some of the other things going on with her. But, yes, I think it is best if you know. It sounds like she needs a lot of support right now, and I think seeing the full picture can only help her in the long run, whether you choose to allow smoking in the house or not.
Either way, it’s better to know.</p>
<p>No one is asking for anyone to feel sorry. No control on what you feel sorry for or not. I personally feel the young man is the one at fault here, and he isn’t welcome at my house either if he smokes. But that’s just my opinion. </p>
<p>Here’s the thing. You let one son smoke in your house, as it’s so danged fired important to him. So then others do too. It can be a problem And that the father is connected to an oxygent machine with a hose up the nose might be a reason why the smoking is not allowed. </p>
<p>I’ve seen stupider things impede family relationships. When you have kids or other loved ones who are being stubborn, one does have to sit down and decide where the lines are drawn and the ramifications for them.</p>
<p>I don’t know anyone who allows smoking in their house. I don’t know anyone who expects to smoke indoors. I don’t know any smokers who still smoke indoors. And I know some smokers</p>
<p>According to very quick, rough Google research, 39% of HS kids drink, 20% smoke, 1/3 are sexually active, 23% have smoked pot in the last month and 8% abuse amphetamines. So there are a whole lot of teens doing a whole lot of things of which most parents would not approve. I wonder if many parents are intentionally in the dark (as in don’t ask, don’t tell.) It’s so difficlut to know the difference between “kids will be kids and do stupid things” and the first steps down the road to addiction and a generally bad adult life.</p>
<p>I am not naive. As a matter of fact I spent years working with addicts. What is the best thing I could possibly help them understand? That there are consequences for their actions. That they are in control and that if things mess up it is no ones fault but their own. This is what you want to teach your kids.</p>
<p>Why should I gladly pay an extra 1500 dollars because my son wants to smoke? Why should I have to suffer? It’s in black and white. You smoke …you pay extra.</p>
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<p>One of the toughest parenting issues I face, personally. </p>
<p>I express my opinion if I think this truth is bad thing. But punishing a kid for telling me the truth…that, to me, only leads to the kid not telling the truth.</p>
<p>Now if i find out that my kid has done something bad that I wasn’t told about, that’s different.</p>
<p>I know some jerks who are militant about smoking. I even know some of them stuck to chemo Iv poles lurking around Memorial Sloan Kettering smoking. The nurses can tell you that some of them sneak smokes in the bathrooms of the hospital. I do believe it is terribly addicting. A sickness of its own to those so addicted. And I know my H’s cousin who won’t visit his parent’s house without permission to smoke or most anyone’s. So what anyone of us doesn’t know, means little as it just shows those limitations. </p>
<p>I let a piano teacher go some years ago, a good one too, because he reeked so badly of cigarette smoke that it would linger in my house when he came to give my kids lessons. I get a headache from the odor. And I can detect it minutely. Get in the car with me, if you’ve had a cigarette recently, I smell it. Maybe not in the open, but in my car, yes. I can tell from the odor in the clothes. </p>
<p>The odd thing is that my son’s apartment does not reek of cigarette smoke. I do notice a faint odor, but not what I would expect with all the smokers living there.</p>
<p>I think we worry way too much.</p>
<p>“I don’t know anyone who allows smoking in their house. I don’t know anyone who expects to smoke indoors. I don’t know any smokers who still smoke indoors. And I know some smokers.”</p>
<p>I don’t know anyone who does those things either, but I don’t know anyone who won’t allow a “smoker” to enter their home! Or won’t see a family member simply because that person is a smoker. Maybe it’s just me, though.</p>
<p>“Why should I gladly pay an extra 1500 dollars because my son wants to smoke?”</p>
<p>Gladly? Of course not. But pay, that’s another story. He might need the insurance even more. You might want him covered since he is at higher risk for cancer, COPD all sorts of other nasties. Get more cases of bronchitous, pneumonia and asthma, allergiy attacks, etc. It’s all a personal matter how far one will go. I personally think my H’s cousin is wrong. I feel very sorry for his parents. I also know that most of their kids smoke and would love to smoke in the house. When we are there, they all smell like smoke and take “walks” to get their nicotine fix. So, in their case, prohibiting it as they did, made no difference. Their dad did smoke until he was unable to do so, and he still craves it. You’d think some allowance would be given. </p>
<p>The problem with deals, Sax, is enforcing them and making sure they are kept. Yes, I want my teen and kids to be honest with me, but I know they won’t always be, or highly unlikely. I try to stay out of the gray areas and only ask when it’s crucial or not important at all.</p>
<p>If your kid gets a DUI will you pay the insurance for him to continue driving?</p>
<p>*What do you do when your kid tells you she’s using heroin. (Cigarette smoking is more addictive, and, independent of legal risks, more dangerous to health over the long term.) *</p>
<p>Hyperbole much?</p>
<p>Cigarettes wont generally kill you after one cigarette or even one pack.
Heroin will easily kill you after one time.</p>
<p>But if my D had much more serious things she was struggling with, i would give a pass on the smoking, because once the deeper needs are met, it will be easier to let go of the cigarettes.
Still wouldnt allow in in the house or around me though.</p>
<p>Cigarettes in NYC cost at least $10-15 PER PACK. That sounds like an extremely expensive habit. Since the price got so high, smoking has dropped considerably for all age groups, but especially young people.</p>
<p>Also, NYC just made it illegal for those under 21 to purchase cigarettes.</p>
<p>The city will mail free nicotine patches to anyone who wants to quit.</p>
<p>" If your kid gets a DUI will you pay the insurance for him to continue driving? "</p>
<p>It would depend upon the circumstances. In my personal situation, none of my kids are on our auto insurance, so it would not be an issue. But I would not blanketly say “no”.</p>
<p>As for paying for health insurance for a smoker, well, yes, I would. I don’t ever want to be in the situation where some medical solution is available if health insurance were in force, but without it, it’s pretty much a nasty death sentence in short order unless i cough up the funds. I’ve unfortunately been to close to such situations and I know that it would be a true heart breaker for me. The health issues that come up may well not be related to smoking either. It could a matter of a permanently disabled hand, as in the case of a cousin or other such situations. </p>
<p>Giving carry aound cash for my smoking son. Nope. Not a dime. Not one thin dime. And he knows. As far as I’m concerned anything I give in the way of cash could go right towards the cigarettes and I won’t do that. Nor would I pay for anything to make it easier for him to smoke without a strong benefit otherwise. I don’t draw too many hard and fast lines, because there are always exceptions to cases. But yes, I would pay for health insurance for any of my kids who smoke, including the premium if I can’t get it out of him, which I would try, and I wouldn’t just let them die. I’m taking care of my mother right now who is dying of end stage COPD and I had jumped on her for years and predicted this would happen. And now it is. I can’t kick a 90 year old, 70 lb mother out Just can’t do it. She doesn’t smoke anymore, but told me she’d love a cigarette, many a time. Still craves it.</p>
<p>Oldmom, a lot of the hardcore smokers know where to get their cigarettes on the black market here in NY for less than $2 a pack. That 's what happens when the tax and prices are raised like that. A thriving under market emerges.</p>
<p>" just cannot feel sorry for anyone who puts conditions ,such as a kid who smokes, for not being able to see their child(ren) or grandchildren. "</p>
<p>I think the person in question said that her S wouldn’t visit their house because she doesn’t permit smoking inside. It is sad that with some really twisted crap in families, like parents who were abusive and so forth, that someone would draw a line in the sand with not being able to smoke inside to cutting off contact (to be honest, I suspect there are a lot more, unspoken issues in that story, but whatever). The thing is, parents or adult children, have the right to set boundaries in their own homes, and if the person cannot respect it, they have the right to say I won’t come, but it is pretty childish to do so over something like smoking (so go outside, it is what most smokers do these days, I don’t even have to say it, most smokers understand). Likewise, a child whose parent smokes has the right to say no smoking indoors…and with smoking, I don’t care what the tobacco lobby or Michael Crichton said (whom I might add died of throat cancer, from a lifetime of smoking), there also is the issues of others in the house, should a parent allow an adult child to smoke in their house when others might have children there?</p>
<p>BTW, just to point something out, someone who has been smoking and is ‘reeking’ of smoke is not just an issue of smell, they are leeching relatively high concentrations of chemicals, many of them dangerous, so if you are smelling it you are breathing in secondhand stuff as well…</p>
<p>As far as cigarettes and heroin, Tobacco is more addictive in general, and in the long term is just as deadly. The person who said you can die from a heroin overdose is correct, the odds of dying in the short term from heroin use is much larger than cigarettes, especially given with heroin the purity bought on the street is all over the place, they could shoot what looks like their normal dose and die…but Tobacco is more addictive and difficult to kick than heroin, and if it weren’t for the political structure in this country, tobacco would have been made illegal a long time ago. </p>
<p>Yes, there are people who are ‘social smokers’, who smoke at a bar or something an nowhere else, but there are also a lot of people who try tobacco and are hooked deeply with basically the first cigarette (apparently, it is especially true for women, young women especially, they tend to get hooked a lot more deeply, early, then males do for example). And yeah, there are people who can quit cold turkey and that is that, but they are a rarity, most smokers take many attempts to do it (there are heroin addicts who quit like that, too, cold turkey…). Overall, Tobacco is quite addictive to most people and there is no such thing as a ‘safe’ smoking habit, comparing it to alcohol is specious at best. </p>
<p>In terms of a child and bad habits and such, the answer is I hope my S would trust me enough to be honest. I haven’t hidden too much from him, I never did what too many people do, pretend to have been this ideal teenager or whatever (there is a funny scene in “Back to the Future” where the mom as a teenager drinks and smokes, and of course later you saw her as the mom, saying “when we were your age, we never drank or smoked or had sex”…). If I thought he was hurting himself, I would tell him that, and tell him I would do what I could to help him, that I loved him…but if we were enabling himself in something very dangerous, like drug use, it could be we would have to give the tough love side of things…but that would be a last resort, or if his activities threatened others in the family. </p>
<p>My mom used to say, now I realize how wise she was, that once a kid hits about 15 or 16 they really have become their own person and there isn’t all that much we can do to directly shape them. Sure, we are the parents and rules still apply, but our role becomes more influence and cajoling then outright doing what we do when they are younger. When they get older, they are their own person, and while we still have power (for example, paying college tuition), it has to be used wisely and where applicable. If my S was dating someone I didn’t like, I wouldn’t use that power, if he was hanging out with some sort of skanky crowd and doing drugs and heavy drinking and his grades and such dropped off, I would use more of my power to try and reach him…in the end, though, by the time they get to 18 or so, they are their own person, and are going to do things we don’t like, make bad choices, but we can’t take the fall for them, as much as we try to help them:). All you can do is a parent is hope that by the time they are ready to go off on their own, that they can go to the bathroom by themselves, tie their shoelaces, and hopefully we have given them the skills, if not to not do stupid things, at least to recover from doing said things:)</p>
<p>“I think the person in question said that her S wouldn’t visit their house because she doesn’t permit smoking inside.”</p>
<p>That was the poster’s Aunt and Uncle whose son won’t visit them in their home because they won’t let him smoke. </p>
<p>The poster won’t let her son into her home because he is a smoker - even though he doesn’t smoke in her house. </p>
<p>I don’t allow anyone to smoke in my house, but they are certainly welcome to visit and I cannot imagine not letting my son not come to visit if he were a smoker (or not going to visit him because he smokes.) My only request is that smokers go outside to smoke.</p>
<p>No, sorry. I was not clear, i guess. He wants to smoke there. Won’t go anywhere he can’t smoke if he can help it.</p>
<p>My mother wouldn’t visit me (and her grandkids) for years because I did not permit smoking in my house.</p>
<p>I know a lot of smokers. Probably hundreds. I can think of two who actually smoke in their houses.</p>
<p>Years ago, not the case, everyone smoked wherever. But now?</p>
<p>Your mother was from a different generation. </p>
<p>I don’t care if you smoke or don’t smoke. I quit over 25 years ago. I would still smoke if it wouidnt kill me. Jeez I’d still eat processed carbs if they didn’t make me fat. </p>
<p>But if you want to smoke on my back deck? Go for it.</p>