Contents
We can hide our bad habits from our parents for years. But everything changes when we become parents ourselves. What if we do not want children to adopt our bad habits?
“I have been smoking for about eight years. I like smoking: it’s a respite for me, a rest, so I relax. At the same time, my mother still doesn’t know about it, and I’m not ready to admit to her that I have such an addiction: I’m afraid that my mother won’t understand, and I don’t want to look “bad” in her eyes.
I recently became a mother myself. While pregnant and breastfeeding, I did not smoke. It was easy for me, but as soon as the health of my child ceased to depend directly on me, I immediately wanted to smoke, and I cannot refuse it.
While the child was small, I hid from him that I smoke. Then, after consulting with my husband, I decided that it was only worse: it turns out that I am deceiving my son, hiding my bad habits from him, trying to look “correct” in his eyes, better than I actually am … Now I smoke with him. And in the soul of a cat scratch, tormented by conscience. Like I’m a bad mother now.
I don’t want to quit smoking. Hide? But wouldn’t lying just make things worse? Smoke calmly? Will this be a “green signal” for the child that he himself can smoke? I would like this to happen as soon as possible. Now my son is only 2 years old. I don’t know what decision to make…
Natalia, 32 years
Read more:
- Electronic cigarette: harm or benefit?
Tatyana Bednik, child psychologist:
“Dear Natalia! It is important to remember that an adult is responsible for everything that happens to him. “To smoke or not to smoke” is also the choice of an independent adult. Yes, not all of our actions can cause the approval of parents, but this does not deprive us of the right to do them. Every person has the right to his own life, to his own ideas of good and bad.
Indeed, there is no point in hiding your bad habits from your child. However, smoking in his presence is undesirable, moreover, it is even undesirable to smoke in the apartment where the child lives, because children, unlike adults, do not have mechanisms for the rapid removal of toxins from the body. Tobacco smoke, often not felt by the smoker himself, settles on furniture, clothes and can cause irritability, tearfulness, poor sleep, frequent colds, allergies and much more in a child.
Read more:
- Allen Carr How to Help Our Children Quit Smoking
Now about the “green signal” for the son. You should not assume that a child who grew up in a family of smokers is doomed to smoking, although, of course, the example of parents can play a certain provoking role. Usually behind children’s attempts to smoke is curiosity, the desire to demonstrate their independence, “adulthood”, to assert themselves among their peers. But this risk is much lower if parents manage to build a trusting relationship with the child and teach him to take responsibility for his actions.