Protect Your Kids from Secondhand Smoke

Cigarette smoke contains around 4,000 chemicals, a number of which are known carcinogens, and is related to a range of illnesses such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cancer, and heart disease. Despite this awareness, many people continue to smoke, and it can be difficult to protect children from exposure to the secondhand smoke produced by this deadly habit. Here are some steps you can take to protect your children from secondhand smoke.

Steps

Reducing Secondhand Smoke Exposure in Your Home/Car

1. Quit smoking. If you are a smoker, the most important step you can take is to quit. Even if you do not smoke in the presence of your children, the smoke that lingers in your clothes, hair, furniture, and car can still have a negative impact on their health; this is known as thirdhand smoke. Smoking can leave behind a residue which can also negatively impact the health of your children.
   • Find resources to help you quit. Smoking is a challenging addiction to give up. Fortunately, there are many resources available, which can help guide you through the process.
   • Try following the START acronym: Set a quit date; Tell friends and family that you plan on quitting; Anticipate challenges; Remove tobacco from your car, work, and home; and Talk to you doctor about support.
   • Consider the benefits you will experience. In addition to protecting your children, you will also be improving your own health. Consider that, 20 minutes after your last cigarette, your heart rate and blood pressure decrease. One year after quitting, your risk of contracting coronary heart disease is cut in half. Ten years after quitting, the risk of dying from lung cancer is 50% lower than that of a continuing smoker.
2. Help others quit smoking, if they are ready. Other adults who spend a lot of time around your children, and who also smoke pose a risk to them. Research suggests that having social support can play an important role in helping an individual to quit smoking, especially during the first few months after giving up cigarettes. Although quitting is a personal choice, you may also be able to persuade them to quit, if you feel they simply need a small push.
   • Calmly explain to them that you want them to quit because of the dangerous carcinogens they are exposing your children to.
   • Explain to them the personal benefits they may experience from quitting.
   • If they agree to give quitting a shot, offer as much emotional support as possible.
3. Forbid smoking in your home. It is your home, and you have the right to make the rules. If an adult visiting your home wishes to smoke, make it clear that smoking will only be allowed outdoors, away from the children. Even if children are not present, the residue left behind from smoking is still present and harmful.
4. Forbid smoking in your car. Some people believe that simply rolling down the windows is enough to protect others from secondhand smoke. This is wrong, and rolling down the windows may actually help to blow the smoke directly into the faces of those sitting in the back seat.
   • Even if your kids are not in the car while someone smokes, the risk of thirdhand smoke exposure still exists.
5. Check your lease agreement. If you live in an apartment building with other tenants who smoke, you may be affected by secondhand smoke. Check your contract to see if there are any restrictions about smoking indoors.
   • If there is not, and a smoking neighbor is affecting you, try to resolve the issue by kindly discussing the matter with them.
   • If you are unable to resolve the issue with the smoker, try broaching the subject with your landlord. They might be willing to make your building a smoke-free building.

Limiting Exposure to Secondhand Smoke Outside the Home

1. Keep children away from public places where smoking is concentrated. It may not always be possible to do this, but it is important to limit their exposure as much as possible.
   • If you do not live in an area with laws banning smoking in restaurants, look for those that voluntarily ban smoking.
   • Avoid theaters, entertainment venues, and anywhere that smokers are likely to feel comfortable lighting up.
   • Be aware that even in places where smoking is banned indoors, many places still permit smoking on outdoor patios. Keep your children away from the tables of smokers or take them indoors.
2. Remove your children from areas where people are smoking. If you must be near the person smoking, kindly ask them if they could refrain while your children are present.
   • Explain to the smoker that you only wish to protect your children’s health. However, be aware that they may refuse.
   • Be understanding of their choice, if they refuse to stop smoking. This might be hard, but do your best.
   • Be prepared to remove your children from the smoking environment, if necessary.
3. Forbid friends and family from spending time around your children while smoking. You may have friends and family who are not ready or are unwilling to quit. You should take the time to explain to them that you value their presence in your life and your children’s lives, but that you cannot allow them to smoke around your children, and that your children will not be allowed to be around them while they are smoking.
   • Help them understand how they are putting everyone around them at risk when they smoke, particularly children, who are still developing. Do your best to be firm, but also respectful.
4. Avoid the homes of friends and family who are smokers. If your child wants to have a sleepover at a friend’s house, but you know that the parents are smokers (especially if they smoke indoors), do not allow them to go.
   • Suggest instead that your child’s friend comes to your home for a sleepover.

Understanding the Effects of Secondhand Smoke on Children

1. Learn about how secondhand smoke impacts children. There is a lot of information available about the effects of secondhand smoke, and how children might come in to contact with it. Before being able to truly protect your children from its negative effects, you need to understand the different ways they might be exposed to it.
2. Search the Internet for reliable, scientific information about secondhand smoke. There is a lot of information available, a few examples of what you might find include:
   • No amount of secondhand smoke exposure constitutes a safe amount.
   • Infants who are exposed to secondhand smoke are at greater risk of dying from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
   • Short-term effects of exposure to secondhand smoke on children include more frequent ear infections, more frequent coughs and colds (and longer recovery times), as well as tooth decay.
   • Long-term effects include greater risk of lung cancer and heart disease, as well as poor lung development.
3. Read scientific articles about the effects of secondhand smoke. While you are likely to find everything you need to know on the internet, if you want to read the scientific studies that discover how secondhand smoke effects children, try searching in scholarly databases.
   • Google Scholar offers a good way to search for scholarly literature. The advantage of reading these peer reviewed articles is that you are getting the information from the source, rather than an interpretation.
4. Call the Department of Health Services in your state to request information. Many states offer free hotlines where you can request information about tobacco use and support for those wishing to quit.

Educating Your Children on the Dangers of Smoking and Secondhand Smoke

1. Take time to educate your children about what secondhand smoke is. It will not always be possible to protect your children from the habits of other people; therefore, it is important that they also understand why they should not smoke, and why they should try to avoid secondhand smoke.
   • If you are not sure how to best talk to your children about this topic, consider using alternative methods. Search for videos, which might help your children understand the dangers of smoking and secondhand smoke.
2. Set a positive example for your children by quitting or refraining from smoking. Your behavior has a strong impact on your children. Telling your children that smoking is unhealthy, and that they should stay away from people who are smoking when you are a smoker yourself sends a confusing message to your child.
3. Find out what steps your child’s school is taking to teach them about smoking. Most schools offer an anti-tobacco program, but some may have a less well-developed program than others. Ask your child’s teacher what the school’s program involves, and whether or not they include education about secondhand smoke in their program.
   • If you are not satisfied with the current program, consider asking how you might be able to get involved in improving the program.
4. Help them to understand why smoking and spending time around smokers is bad for them. Simply telling your child that smoking and secondhand smoke are bad does not help them understand exactly why they should not do it.
   • Explain to them the different ways that smoking and secondhand smoke can harm the body.
   • Use examples to back up your points. If you tell them that smoking is bad for their lungs, you might consider showing them a picture of a smoker’s lungs.
   • Be clear that while choosing not to smoke is the most important thing they can do, avoiding secondhand smoke is also important for avoiding negative health effects.
   • Point out, for example, that even secondhand smoke exposure can lead to lung cancer.
5. Explain to your child that, although they may see friends, family, or celebrities smoking, they should not feel like they also have to smoke.
   • Some evidence suggests that children feel pressure to do something simply because they think their peers are doing it too.
6. Warn them about peer pressure. Though it may be true that much of the pressure a child feels comes from their own minds, they may also, at some point, be pressured by someone else to try a cigarette or other tobacco product. Preparing them for this possibility will help them say “no.”
7. Come up with ways to say "no" to peer pressure together with your children. Practice different scenarios with them. It can sometimes be hard to know how to get out of a situation in which you feel uncomfortable. Practicing different scenarios in advance may be helpful.
   • Possible ways to say “no” include:
     • Making a joke, and changing the subject.
     • Firmly saying, “No, I’m not interested.”
     • Suggesting other things they might do instead of smoking.
     • Leaving the situation without saying anything, if nothing else works.
   • Explain to your children that a true friend will respect their decision. If that “friend” continues to put pressure on them, ask them to consider if they have other friends with more similar interests.
8. Help them find ways to politely excuse themselves from situations in which they are being exposed to the secondhand smoke of others. It can be difficult to know how to politely leave a situation you don't want to be in, especially as a young person. Discuss this with your children, and give them examples about how you might handle the situation yourself.

Tips

• If you quit smoking, give your home and Get-Rid-of-Tobacco-Odors-in-Cars a thorough cleaning in order to remove any residue that may be left behind. Open all the windows to let fresh air in, take out all the garbage, and remove furniture that has been ruined by smoke.
• Air fresheners only mask the scent of cigarette smoke — they do not remove it.
• Change the air filter in your car, if you smoke in it. The filter will retain the smoke residue, and the smell will become worse when you turn on your heat or A/C.
• Understand that for some smokers, their habit is a delicate subject. Try to be understanding and patient when discussing the issue, even though you may not understand or agree with it.

Warnings

• Remember that the secondhand smoke exposes children to unhealthy chemicals such as arsenic, lead, mercury, DDT, acetone, ammonia, formaldehyde, cyanide, and carbon monoxide, to name a few. They may not be visible, but they are there.
• It is estimated that more than 480,000 people die each year from smoking, using tobacco, or simply being exposed to secondhand smoke. This makes tobacco the leading cause of preventable death in the US.
• Young bodies are far more vulnerable to cell mutation triggered by secondhand smoke as they are growing. However, that does not mean that adults are immune to the effects of secondhand smoke either.

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Sources and Citations

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